Zach In Shining Armor
by AwesomePP
Summary: Cross My Heart and Hope To Spy in Zach's POV. Cammie wasn't supposed to fall in love on the job. And neither was I.
1. Chapter 1

Humans are animals that live in societies. From our daily life to instincts, we have a need to express our observations, experience, ideas and feelings to others. In fact, the more other people understand, the better.

Sometimes, there is no desperate need to express ourselves but an interest in our lives, relationships, feelings, ideas or things that we encounter.

This is why humans dance, sing and most commonly, write.

_(Taken from _Human Sociology 101_)_

_This was my favorite passage from my favorite textbook in my days at Blackthorne. It was a reminder that I was human, not a killing machine and definitely not a Circle of Cavan member. It got me out of my past alive. _

_And this is why, at the age of 16, I took the initiative to write a report on my encounters with Cammie Morgan. It was another reminder that I was human. _

_Cammie's tale has been told to the world long time ago. The CIA has kept one of the copies in their reference library and each day, many agents are still reading it. M16 has made a 500-page deduction of the Circle and psychology behaviors of teenage spies. KGB has taken inspiration from Cammie and used her spy techniques. And I'm sure the Russian mafia is currently trying to use some of the Circle's ideas for kidnapping and hypnotizing. _

_But like the old saying, 'Each story has two sides.' So I give you my side of the story. This is the report I had written when I was 16._

_I think the world is ready now._

_Enjoy. _

_-Z_

* * *

**Blackthorne Mission Report**

**(Standard protocol)**

**Operative Zachary Goode**

**03 26 hours**

**Blackthorne Training Field**

The ditches were cold tonight. I could hear the waterfall, thundering in the distance. I could hear the chirping of crickets, rubbing their feelers in the undergrowth. But most of all, I could hear the rifles. Clacking into place, their long barrels glinting in the moonlight and shifting under arms.

I didn't have one, I had an Armalite 15, 9mm barrel. It was a concealer gun, hidden under my jacket.

I tilted my head and listened to the footsteps. There was no need for comms tonight, I knew exactly where they were. The crunching was getting louder…I could hear the dirt crumbling…closer…I could hear his ragged breathing…closer…_closer_

"Oomph!"

Headlock.

Flip using momentum.

Elbow to abdomen.

Dodge front kick.

Lash out with heel.

Hit sweet spot right over eye.

Pin him down with roundhouse kick.

Pull out concealed carry gun with right hand.

Shoot.

And I watched the guy's blue eyes grow wide as red liquid exploded on his chest.

"Argh, Zach! Look what you did to my shirt!" Despite that it was freezing, Grant took off his stained top as we jogged back to campus. I swear, the guy can withstand any temperature. It was in January, for crying out loud. "Blasted paint-filled bullets."

I laughed and scooped up a handful of cold ditch water and splashed it at him; "Better not let Devereux catch you without your shirt on. He'll make you do laps until you puke."

Grant snorted, "Right, like that'll ever stop me."

* * *

"Zach! You left your comms!" Jonas was waiting for us at the door of the dormitories block. The lucky duck ran the comms center and he only needed to jog for two minutes to get back to our room while we practically had to cross the whole campus. In his hand was a thin wire and he was waving it in front of my face, "You could've gotten us binned!"

I shrugged and climbed up the stairs to our dorm, "I knew where you were. Got Grant pretty well on my own." I smirked at Grant.

"Stop being such a bloody _hawk_," Grant did the most ridiculous British accent I had ever heard.

"Now, now, I would say that if I were you, _Mossad_. I can work on my headlock, you know," I laughed.

"Shut it, guys," Jonas shot a dirty look at Grant and rubbed the pinch spot. "We have Devereux again in five hours. _Someone_ better get his Biology essay done by breakfast." He gave me a meaningful look.

I tried to act nonchalant, "He gave me another week. I'm not sweating it."

"You had the whole winter break to do it, Zach. Where were you?" Grant asked, dropping onto his bed and pulled off his muddy boots.

Usually, when your best friend asks you about your whereabouts at Christmas, you'd answer easily. When a trained assassin asks you, you try not to meet his gaze and hope he/she can't tell that you're lying.

I was both so I could simply look Grant in the eye and say, "I was with my mother."

* * *

"Gentlemen, what did I teach you?" Professor Devereux snarled, his voice sharp and cold in the morning light. "Last night, your mission was to kill directly and by that, I mean fast."

He paused and surveyed us, "But none of could do it, except for one. I'm very disappointed." I felt his gaze flicker to me but I stayed motionless. He knew nothing and it would stay like that.

"I don't care if you know how to punch a pressure point, I don't care if you know how to break someone's leg and leave them lying there. But they are still alive. They still can have the chance to fight back. Nearly all of you could've been sabotaged because you didn't kill your opponent. Take my advice gentlemen, don't stop until they're dead."

"But, of course, the key to a successful operative about his killer instinct," he continued as a slight breeze picked up, ruffling the rifle range's grassy field. I stiffened. He had called us 'operatives', that was a lie. Everyone here knew that. Blackthorne boys were never operatives- we were assassins. We could never be the good guys. It was a burden to us.

But teachers here liked to pretend. Just what they were trained for. Just what _we_ were trained for.

"Not everyone has the killer instinct. Not everyone has the ability to take a life and live it down. Some people go crazy. They run away, distract themselves or simply…" Devereux made a finger gun, pointed it at his temple and cocked his head.

As if suicide was that simple.

"As I said earlier, only very few of you managed to use the guns you were assigned with according to my orders so let's see if we can…inject this reflex as much as we can to each one of you gentlemen," Devereux gave us a twisted smile and pulled off the tarp that usually covered the targets when we didn't use them.

Seeing what our professor had done to the targets, we knew exactly why he was appointed as our Special Operations teacher. He had replaced the bulls-eye targets with life-sized pictures of people. He started to hand out the guns. When he came by my side, "Good work last night, Zach. I saw you shoot Grant. You were trained, weren't you?" It wasn't a question and I was 99% sure has was about to add _'by your mother'_ at the end.

I wasn't exactly proud of last night, shooting my best friend, even if it was only paint-bullets, so I mumbled as softly as I could, "Thanks." I took the gun from his hands. It was heavier than the one I used last night. We were using real bullets today, lets hope no one points it in the wrong direction.

"Off you go, gentlemen," Devereux rubbed his hands together. In a softer voice, he added, "This should be interesting." I couldn't help but think that this was meant for me.

Despite the direct order from our professor, 7 Blackthorne boys stood motionlessly on the grass facing the new targets. None of us had fired real bullets before. None of us had shot a person that we didn't know before. None of us knew if we had the killer instinct. And none of us knew if we could still live with the fact we killed someone. It would hit the targets, hard. The shots would be loud, deafening. None of us was confident around real bullets yet.

None of us.

But one.

I let my brain go autopilot and I watched my arms rise up in front of me. My brain had gone fuzzy, like someone had shoved a muffler into my conscience's mouth. I felt like I had cut all ties with the world, with everything.

I was just following my instinct like a hawk. My _killer_ instinct.

And the first gunshot was fired in the crisp morning air.

A hole appeared in the forehead of one of the targets. Then the chest. And in between the eyes.

"Excellent."

I could recognize Dr. Steve's voice anywhere. I had known him ever since I was 8 years old. He was standing right behind me on the rifle range. No, wait, correction. A _Circle of Cavan agent _was standing behind me. I hated him for what he was a part of. For what I saw him do so many times over the breaks. For what he did to _me._ For uncovering the so-called killing instinct in me.

"Professor Devereux!" I could almost feel Dr. Steve smiling. I imagined his sickly sweet smile, it was worse than our Special Operation's teacher. My hand started to tremble and I quickly used my other hand to steady it, now holding the gun commando style with both hands. "Mr. Goode seems to excel at this exercise, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to excuse him for the rest of the lesson?"

I fixed my eyes on the target in front of me, staring at the bullet holes. I took me pretty much all of my whole body strength not to swing the gun around and put a hole between Dr. Steve's eyes. _I. Must. Not. Lose. It. In. Front. Of. Dr. Steve._

Devereux walked over and inspected me, "Yes, I suppose so. You may take him, Dr. Sanders."

Dr. Steve let out a half-laugh like he was the most innocent person in the world, "Please, call me Dr. Steve." Then he steered me away from my surprised classmates.

Once we were out of earshot, Dr. Steve leaned close to me and whispered, "Your mother wants to see you."

* * *

"Hello sweetheart," Mom greeted me behind her desk without even looking up from her computer screen. "Sit."

"Professor Devereux told me you had exceptional performance last night," she smiled, white flashing behind red lips. Mom had a way of knowing small little things around Blackthorne but I had never seen her anywhere around the campus besides in her office. Her office had nothing in it, not even a single photograph. It told nothing about a person called Catherine Goode. This was a technique drilled into every Blackthorne boy. Don't let anything give away yourself.

"I trained you well over the break," Mom continued. "I think you're ready for something more than that small task in Singapore."

"For what?" the words felt heavy. I could already predict what she was about to say. _Join the Circle. Assassinate any possible traitors. Tie up any loose ends._

"Joe can tell you," Mom replied, swiveling her computer screen. She had fixed a video camera at the top of the screen and I supposed Joe Solomon had done the same since I was staring right at him on the screen.

"Hey," I smiled. Joe Solomon was probably the only person in the world I trusted. He was the only person who could help me take down the Circle. And he knew me. Every time I saw him, I would remember the most important thing he had ever said to me.

"_Do you like what the Circle's doing, Zach?" Joe asked. _

"_No," I whispered. Even for a thirteen year old, what my mother was doing was completely inhumane. _

"_Do you want to end it?" He asked again. _

"_Yes," I replied firmly. _

"_Help me end it," he spoke solemnly. _

"_Sure."_

_Joe smiled, "We can do this, together, Zach." _

"How's school, Zach?" Joe said. This was a cutout. _Does anyone know about us? Are you still resisting?_

"Fine," I replied. _Everything's fine. We can bring them down._

"Good," Joe nodded. _Keep going, Zach. It'll be over soon. _"Right, Zach. This is a very simple operation. All you need to do is to keep an eye on this girl, Cameron Morgan."

As if on cue, my mother handed me a file. Inside was a stack of papers, clipped to it was a student photo of a girl with dishwater blonde hair. She looked normal, not beautiful but still pretty. She had the kind of face that would slip past your mind without a second thought. It was the face of a pavement artist.

I scanned through the papers. They were records of her in the CIA database. There was something interesting from last year's November, apparently she had sneaked out from school to have a clandestine relationship with a boy. I smirked, this was one interesting girl.

"Keep an eye on her?" I repeated.

"Track her, study her," Joe said. "Know her."

A million questions ran through my head but I didn't ask.

A good operative never questions orders. No matter how ridiculous, no matter how impossible.

"Sure thing," I replied. Then I noticed a small slip of paper at the very back of the file, it read '_keep Cammie safe'_ in Joe's handwriting_. _While covertly studying it and wondering about what it meant, I asked, "Just one question. How am I going to do that?"

My mother answered cryptically, "We'll drop you in with the boys."

* * *

"We're going to the Gallagher Academy, Zach!" Jonas practically squealed as I walked into the dorm later that day.

I froze in mid-step, "_What. Did. You. Say?" _Gallagher…that rang a few bells. Warning bells, that is.

"The Gallagher Academy For Gifted Young Women," Jonah recited. He then sat down in front of his computer and opened up a window, his eyes gleaming maniacally. "I did some research on it, I think it's something like ours. Apparently, it has the toughest curriculum in the world."

"Who cares Johnny boy? The most important thing is that it's a _girls' _school," Grant lay down on his bed and flexed his muscles. "Time to tone up my abs, don't you think?"

"I know what it is," I snapped. Cold fury was starting to build up in my chest. It was the same type of fury whenever I saw Dr. Steve's stupid phony smile. "I don't care."

Grant stopped and raised an eyebrow at me, "What's wrong, bro?"

I hissed in a low voice. "It was my mother's school."

* * *

**Seven years ago**

**Virginia circus fair**

_The girl in front of me was eating cotton candy as her father bent down to pick up something. Mom and I were right behind them, watching the clowns. A few minutes later, Mom squeezed my hand and whispered, "Let's go Zach."_

"_But I want to watch the clowns," I protested, not wanting to leave the show. _

"_Later, sweetheart," she was already standing up, pulling on my hand more forcefully._

"_It's nearly over," I wanted to say. But I knew that I shouldn't protest against her anymore. I sighed, took one last glance at the trumpet-playing clown and followed my mother out of the Big Top. _

"_Where are we going?" I asked but my mother wasn't listening. Her eyes were entirely focused on a point, but the edges of her pupils were everywhere, seeing everything. Her grip on me had tightened and she was standing up straight. I knew this look. This was the Catherine Goode operative look. This was her Gallagher Girl stance. This was when my own mother was dangerous. _

_She started walking quickly but not fast enough to attract attention. Mom pushed her way through the crowd. I tried to follow her the best as I could but she was like a chameleon, she seemed to have disappeared. I opened my mouth to call out but suddenly she was there, squeezing on my shoulders._

"_Stay here for a moment, okay? Yell if anyone comes by," she smiled but her eyes were cold and distant. I nodded. I already knew the drill. 'Anyone' meant suspicious people. For instance, police. I leaned against the wall, scuffling my feet like any little boy at the age of eleven would do. _

_Later, I saw my mother walking closely behind another woman. My mother's arm was around the other lady's waist and I could almost make out the outline of a concealer gun in my mother's sleeve. The woman was expressionless but her eyes were defiant. The two women headed into a narrow alleyway and I slid against the wall to get closer to the alley. I peered around the corner and I knew that I could probably never forget what I saw. _

_My mother had pinned the other woman against the brick wall, "Tell me. Give it to me." _

_The other woman shook her head, "The CIA has it already." _

"_No, not yet," my mother hissed and took out her gun. She tapped it against the other woman's temple. "Whom did you make the dead-letter drop with?" _

"_I'm not going to tell you anything," the other woman snarled. My mother barely blinked as she fired a bullet quietly into the woman's thigh- a silencer did the trick. She then grabbed both cheeks of the woman's face so she wouldn't scream as red liquid started to pool at their feet. _

"_Come again, sweetie?" _

_The woman's eyeballs were already rolling back as she choked out, "Matthew Morgan." _

_My mother smiled, "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" Then she tightened her finger on the trigger again. The bullet made a soft thud as it disappeared into the woman's temple. There wasn't even any blood. My mother then heaved the body into a pile of bulging rubbish bags. _

_Then she took out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. She lighted all of the cigarettes and sprayed them on the dead body and the trash bags, making them catch fire. She tossed the box to the other side of the alleyway; I noticed that she hadn't left her fingerprints on anything since she was wearing gloves._

_If anyone asked, some gang that hadn't bothered to stub out their fags had caused the fire. No one would find a dead body in there._

_That was the first time I had seen my mother kill someone._

* * *

**Later that day**

"_Mom, where did you go to school?" I asked. My mother had to learn how to kill somewhere right? _

_Mom turned to me and smiled, "The Gallagher Academy." _

"_So you learnt everything you know there?" _

"_Pretty much, honey. Why?" Mom continued to flip through her magazine. She learnt how to kill at Gallagher. Gallagher teaches you how to kill. Gallagher Girls are killers. Like mom. Every single one of them kills. I hated them. They turned my mother into a blood-crazed murderer. I hated my mother. _

"_Nothing. But where do I go?" I asked quietly. _

"_Blackthorne Institute," Mom replied. _

"_Is it like Gallagher, Mom?" I asked again. _

"_It's a little like that," Mom laughed but my blood ran cold. I was going to be an assassin. Like mom._

* * *

"So…they're like us. Assassins?" Grant queried.

"Not sure," Jonah scanned the info on his screen again. "It only mentioned 'finest operatives'. I mean, the teachers call us 'operatives' sometimes, right?"

"The teachers," I said. "Lie."

Grant shrugged, "Look, we get to stay in a posh mansion, flirt with pretty yet smart and maybe dangerous girls so why are you so agitated again, Zach?"

I shook my head, "It doesn't matter."

* * *

**Estimated destination: Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Roseville, Virginia**

**Actual destination: The Mall, Washington D.C.**

**Time taken to reach destination by helicopter: 4 hours**

**Time arrived: 13 30**

**Time estimated to leave: Until Dr. Steve stops rambling on about pointless stuff that we already know again and again and again... (Which was 54 times, last time Operative Goode counted)**

"Remember, gentlemen," Dr. Steve said for the fifty-fifth time. "Don't let anything reveal about yourselves." The Blackthorne Burden, as dubbed by me.

"Dr. Steve, can we get onto whatever we're doing here now?" Chester Parker piped up.

"All right, Mr. Parker," Dr. Steve sighed. "There are girls from the Gallagher Academy here. I want you to tail them, find out what their mission is and follow them to their destination. But I warn you, gentlemen. Expect these ladies to be good."

A silence greeted his words.

"No questions? Excellent," Dr. Steve then hopped out of the helicopter and disappeared.

"_Cherchez la femme*_," Grant smiled lazily as we spotted a group of girls wearing the Gallagher uniform coming out of a van. "Which one do you want, Zach? The one with black hair- ooh, I know- the one with the cute butt? No, wait! The blonde has an angel face. She looks good next to you."

"Blonde?" I perked my head up and sure enough, Cameron Morgan was the blonde with the angel face in the middle of her classmates.

"You know what? You'll get Blondie and I'll have her friend," Grant jerked his chin at a rather muscular girl standing next to Cameron. _Rebecca Baxter. _I remembered the name from the file. And I knew about the Baxters.

"She's British," I said automatically. Then I wanted to punch myself for revealing too much.

Grant shot me an odd look, "How do you know she's a Brit?"

"Her eyes are green," I said, trying to make my voice sound 'know-it-all'-ly. "British people usually have that color eyes because of the less sunlight in Europe. And most of her stuff are from Harrods."

"Who cares how they look like?" Jonas grumbled. He had been silent the whole time Grant was picking out girls. "Just focus on our mission." He then very covertly slipped an earpiece into my trench coat pocket. _Comms,_ he mouthed.

"_Thank you_, genius," I said sarcastically. I enclosed my hand around it then I pretended to run my hand through my hair and swiftly fitting the comms unit in my ear.

"Mossad to Hawk. Mossad to Hawk. Come in, Hawk," Grant's voice was much louder in my ear now.

"Yes, Mossad. I read you loud and clear," I sighed, Grant was standing right next to me.

"What's the plan, guys?" Jonas whispered excitedly, bouncing on the cold bench that we were sitting on.

"Mossad, Libris, keep eyeball and visual on Blondie and the Brit, I'll be back-up. Rendezvous in two and a half hours," I commanded. I felt much confident now, slipping into my cover. I was just an ordinary teenage guy, walking around The Mall in Washington D.C. Simple. Easy.

"Copy that," murmured Jonah as he set off into the crowd while Grant pulled on a red baseball cap and strayed a few feet in front of me.

I smiled. Now, a normal guy in D.C. during January would go to the nearest Starbucks to get a steaming mocha and maybe some M and Ms to keep his strength up. ('A good operative knows how important keeping warm is and the sugar level in his body high enough to be able to go into combat at a moment's notice. Especially in cold weather.' Direct quote from _Covert_ _Performances in Extreme Conditions_) I plunged my hand into my pocket and felt a fifty-dollar bill in there.

Mocha and chocolate it is.

* * *

"This is too easy," Grant laughed easily as we gathered again at the park bench, with Jonas a little way behind us. "No action, no nothing. I don't think they even spotted us yet."

"That's rich coming from someone who switched shirts twice in half an hour," Jonah snorted in to his comms.

Grant shrugged, "Didn't you see them in front of the National Museum? They stopped in mid-stride and spun around like ballerinas! They were bloody obvious."

"Okay, we'll rotate," I said, ignoring Grant's ridiculous comment. "Grant and I will get eyeball and visual. Jonas, you're back-up."

Jonas started to nod but froze and whispered, "They're looking." I glanced at the closest piece of glass (which was the Marks and Spencer display window) and I could see the reflection of Rebecca Baxter and Cameron Morgan looking at us. The Baxter girl was spinning around, flinging her arms wide open and I saw Grant flashing his flirting smile at her.

"Act natural!" Grant muttered at Jonas who was currently impersonating a moonstruck squirrel. I immediately tried to diffuse the tension by forcing out laughter and flashing a grin at the nearest female (who was not a Gallagher Girl, that is).

"Alright, guys. Cool it," I nodded at Grant. "Let's go."

* * *

"They are _so _following us," an unfamiliar voice squealed. I mentally rolled my eyes. Cameron Morgan and the Brit had to camouflage themselves by slipping in a group of normal civilian girls. Normal civilian girls who loved to drool on eye-candy, namely Grant and I.

**Observation #1: The Subject thinks blending in with similar uniform will throw the Operatives off their trail. Please, don't take us for idiots.**

"Hawk, Mossad, where are you?" Jonas asked in my ear.

"Escalators down to the Metro," Grant replied crisply, leaning against the handrails.

"Argh, Mossad. That just complicates everything," Jonas complained. "Moving surveillance is torture." I rolled my eyes again at Jonas' whining. As far as I was concerned, Blackthorne Boys do not whine.

"Let's run and get it!" a British-accented voice cut through the air as people gave a mad dash onto the train.

"Mossad, get on!" I quickly said into my comms unit and immediately jumped out of the way of the crowd.

"What about you?" Grant asked as he squeezed into the train compartment.

"I'm staying put," I replied before Grant went silent as the train went into the tunnel. There was a bench in the station and I sat down, looking exactly like a teenage boy waiting for the next train and looking at the advertisements through the glass.

But I saw a highly trained operative studying two girls standing in the shadows below the escalators. After five minutes, one of the girls left the other and went up the escalators.

"Libris," I said into my comms. "Position?"

"Right outside the Metro station," Jonas replied.

"I've got eyeball on the Brit, she's coming up from the escalators, tail her," I then got up and started to walk towards the lifts.

"I thought you and Mossad took the train," Jonas said.

I smiled, "No teenage girl hangs out at the mall for half a day and only leaves during rush hour. I'd leave way before that."

"You're good, Hawk," Jonas laughed. "Okay, I've got eyeball."

"Me too," I muttered and my hand shot out to press the elevator button.

Right before Cameron Morgan's hand touched it.

"Hey," I did the half-nod thing all typical cute/flirty American teenage boys did.

"Hi," Cameron Morgan replied shortly, pressing the button again.

**Observation #2: The Subject seems like she is in a hurry.**

I didn't talk when the elevator came. I positioned myself at the back of the elevator, leaning on the railings. By standing slightly behind her, I could observe Cameron Morgan easier than any other angle.

She had chocolate brown eyes and she had a small dimple on her right cheek. She looked too innocent for a killer but a good operative knows that looks are deceiving. Maybe she'd pull out a holster in a split second and I'd have a chance to show her what I thought of her school turning my mother into a killer.

"So," I started, pointing at the crest on her coat. "The Guggenheim Academy." I purposely said the name wrongly despite that I knew exactly how to pronounce correctly (as well with 12 different accents).

"Gallagher Academy," she corrected.

"I've never heard of it," I replied. Correction, I've heard of it, and not to mention, despised it ever since I saw my mother kill someone.

"Well, it's my school," she looked off to the side, as if to say, _you'd never hear of a girls' school for killers, right? _

"You in a hurry or something?" I said. _In a hurry to kill an innocent man in the middle of D.C? _I sneered in my head.

"Actually, I'm supposed to meet my teacher at the ruby slipper exhibit. I've only got twenty minutes, and if I'm late, he'll kill me." Not unless you kill him first.

She was lying, I noted. She wasn't wearing a watch and yet she knew the exact time, "How do you know?"

"Because he said, 'meet me at the ruby slipper exhibit.'" Cameron Morgan replied. I paused for a moment, pondering if she was lying about her destination.

**Observation #3: The Subject is ridiculously straightforward and blunt.**

"No," I almost laughed out loud and shook my head. "How do you know you only have twenty minutes? You're not wearing a watch." It was hard to not add, _I thought girl killers were better than this._

"My friend just told me," she answered a little too quickly while her right hand rubbed her left wrist. _Correction, _I thought. _The last time you saw your British friend was almost seven minutes ago._

"You fidget a lot," I said again. She had tugged on her sleeves for five times and brushed her fingers through her hair twice in our thirty-second elevator ride. _Low blood sugar?_ I guessed.

"I'm sorry." _Sure you're not, _a Jonas-like voice snorted in my head.

"I have low blood sugar." _Ha, I knew it. Serves you right for not buying something to eat in weather as cold as this. _

"I need to eat something." _Goodness me, did she ever read _Covert Performances in Extreme Conditions_? She was a pathetic excuse for an assassin. That was good in some sense- she'd get binned before she could ever tighten the finger on the trigger. She wouldn't have to be like Mom._

Because of the fact the probably she wouldn't be an assassin (and out of the goodness of my heart), I scooped out the half eaten bag of M and Ms I had bought earlier, "Here. I ate most of them already." Then I regretted not coating the candy in rat poison.

"Oh…um… That's okay. Thanks though." Smart girl. Looks like I didn't need the rat poison after all.

"Oh, okay," I slid the chocolate back into my pocket. More blood sugar for me then.

"Thanks for the candy," and she strode out of the elevator once the doors slid open and I causally followed her out.

"Where are you going?" She spun on her heels, brown eyes flashing.

"I thought we were going to meet your teacher in the wonderful world of Oz," I joked. Let's see if girl killers have a sense of humor because my mother clearly doesn't.

"_We?"_ Oh, no, Cameron Morgan. 'We' as in Grant, Jonas, your British Baxter friend and that fountain over there.

"Sure, I'm going with you."

"No, you're not."

"Look," I took out the 'normal American civilian boy' card. "It's dark. You're by yourself. And this _is _D.C." I gestured around to emphasize my point. "And you've only got," _thirteen minutes and thirty seconds. _But I didn't say that, "Fifteen minutes to meet your teacher."

"Fine," she said grudgingly. I smirked. Like Grant said, this was too easy.

"You can really walk fast," I said cheerily. "So, do you have a name?" Innocent question. Do I expect an innocent answer?

"Sure. Lots of them."

No, I do not. So I smiled. She is _so_ like Mom.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" I asked, genuinely curious. I doubted girl killers could keep boyfriends. I mean, where's my dad? Mom probably scared him off.

"Look, thanks for the chivalry and all but this isn't necessary," she said. Her tone seemed to say, _I could take care of myself perfectly well, you know. I could kill you with my bag. _Of course, you'd be able to kill me with your backpack. 20 bucks says that you have a concealer in your coat. Heck, even I'm not that evil.

**Observation #4: The Subject likes to work alone.**

"It's just up here," she tilted her head to look at the entrance sign for the Museum of American History. Ah, so she _was_ telling the truth about the Ruby Slippers exhibit.

"And there's a cop over there," she jerked her chin to her left. I wanted to scoff. The cop in question was an old man and had a limp so I was pretty sure my granny could run faster than he could (if I had a grandmother, that is).

"What? You think that guy could do a better job at protecting you than I can?"

"No, I think if you don't leave me alone, I could scream and that cop will arrest you." So she had a sense of humor after all. Yep, she had killer humor. Get it? _Killer_ humor.

Anyways, the girl radar thing in me told me that I should back off or she'd get suspicious. I nodded, took a step back and smiled because my spy radar told me that I was 98% finished with my mission.

"Hey," she called, as she was about to walk through the doors. "Thanks anyways." I nodded again. _No, thank _YOU _because I have successfully achieved my mission objective. _

While she grabbed a brochure off the help desk, I wasted no time as I rushed up the stairs to the ruby slippers exhibit. Usually, I would've flipped my trench around to change my appearance for a bit but Cameron was already five seconds to the deadline. She probably thought no one could tail her in five seconds. Unless they had already been tailing her first, that is. Like me.

When I got to the third floor, I saw Joe standing five feet away from the slippers in the shadows. He caught my eye and I mouthed _'Cameron Morgan'_ to him. He nodded and mouthed back '_wait'._

Two seconds later, Cameron appeared and Joe said to her, "You're four seconds late."

"But I'm alone," she replied.

"No, Ms. Morgan. You're not."

I took that as my cue to walk up to her, smile and say, "Hi again, Gallagher Girl."

"Nice work, Zach," Joe winked at me. But Cameron was glaring daggers at me and the phrase '_if looks could kill_' popped into my head. And since she was a Gallagher Girl, I was pretty sure she could kill me. Like mom.

"Hi, Blackthorne Boy," Cameron said coldly. I froze and let my mouth fall slightly open (which is not very attractive, now I look back on it), how did she know? That sort of information was classified.

"Very good, Ms. Morgan," Joe was almost chuckling. "But not good enough." I openly smirked, Joe could say that again. For a horrible killer, Cameron Morgan had a lot to learn.

Cameron paused for a moment and a mixture of emotions crossed her face. Shock, anger, confusion… I smirked again.

Okay, I admit it. I had used her, flirted with her, acted all knight in shining armor for her but in the end, I had bested her. Yep, Zachary Goode had bested the so-called Gallagher Girl. Some 'finely trained operative' she was.

"Your mission was…what?" her voice was strained. Trying to keep it from screaming, I suppose. "To keep us from achieving our mission?"

I cocked my head, "Something like that." She finally understood my present existence. I smirked and gave a half-laugh at her naïve-ness (well, as naïve you can get for a female killer). "I thought I could just make you late for your meeting. I didn't think you'd actually tell me where it is and walk me halfway there."

Then a large group of tourists wandered into the exhibit. I immediately could spot a tiny gap between the mass of bodies and I slipped into the crowd. At the corner of my eye, I could see Joe putting an arm around Cameron's shoulders and guiding her in the opposite direction.

Before they exited the room, I could've sworn she looked back towards me but I had already walked away.

* * *

"And so the girl fell into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. That was a sad thing, her hair looked quite nice," Chester laughed as we settled back in our helicopter. "It was interesting to meet them."

"Interesting, my ass," Grant grumbled. "Zach told me to be a decoy for the two girls. I think I went at least halfway to Brooklyn."

I shrugged, "At least you got to tail your Brit for the whole day."

"I suppose," Grant huffed.

"So do you think they're killers?" Jonah was obviously not into the mission.

"Nah, they look too…easy," Chester said. "Too innocent to have any _killer instinct."_ He spat out the last two words like Professor Devereux did.

"Don't underestimate the ladies," Dr. Steve said softly from the pilot seat. I could already feel his gaze flickering towards me. I knew for a fact that he was thinking the same thing, as I was, _Mom._

* Literal meaning: Look for the woman.

* * *

**07 53 hours**

**Gallagher Academy Grand Hall**

**Day 1 of Gallagher/Blackthorne Exchange Program**

Like any other human being, I enjoy attention. For a teenage boy, it's only normal that you'd like to have a girl's attention on you. Now times that by a hundred and you'll get the feeling as I walked into the Gallagher Academy's Grand Hall next morning.

I heard forks dropping and I could see heads turning to look at the fifteen boys from Blackthorne Institute entered the room just as the headmistress said, "For more than a hundred years, this institution has remained secluded, but yesterday, some of your classmates were able to meet another set of exceptional students from another exceptional institution."

I smirked and scanned the room, trying not to wrinkle my nose at the fact that this was where my mother had turned into a killer. I spotted Cameron Morgan sitting in the midst of them with Rebecca Baxter by her side with a face that I recognized from the newspapers, Macey McHenry, the senator's daughter. I almost laughed at the irony of it- the senator's daughter training to be a murderer. It would be an outrage if anyone knew.

"Members of the Gallagher trustees, along with the board of directors from the Blackthorne Institute, have long thought that our students would have a lot to learn from each other," Headmistress Morgan smiled at us. I tried not to recoil from her gaze. She was one of the reasons why this wretched place hadn't closed down like it should. And yet she was a mother to a Gallagher Girl. Like mother, like daughter. "And this year, we're going to see that happen."

"When Gillian Gallagher," the murderer who started it all, I growled in my head, "was a girl, this hall had been home to balls and cotillions, friends and family, but it hasn't had many guests in the last century. I'm so glad today is an exception."

Then I noticed Dr. Steve was really exaggerating the 'guests' thing. He was actually shaking hands and waving at the students. I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

As if Dr. Steven Sanders was ever as nice like that.

"It is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Steven Sanders. Dr. Sanders…" the headmistress trailed off as Dr. Steve went up to the podium and tilted the microphone to him and said, "Dr. Steve."

"Excuse me?" the headmistress asked.

"Call me _Dr. Steve,_" he said with a punch at the air.

"Of course," the headmistress told him and turned to face the student body. "_Dr. Steve_ and his students will be spending the remainder of the semester with us." As soon as she finished her sentence, a low whisper rippled through the crowd.

"They will be attending you classes, eating with you at meals. Ladies, this is a wonderful opportunity and I hope you will use this time to forge bonds of friendship that you can carry throughout your lives."

I smiled at her words, as if any of them would like to socialize with the son of Catherine Goode. Then I automatically glanced at Cameron Morgan. She was staring at me, her face expressionless as a girl leaned close to her ear and reading her lips, she said, _'I wouldn't mind being bonded to him.'_

* * *

Blackthorne boys are supposed to be smooth, suave and traceless. We aren't supposed to look like assassins. We can't reveal anything about where Blackthorne is located. We couldn't show anyone our burden.

So that's why Dr. Steve gave us all brand new uniforms once we stepped inside the Gallagher Academy and personally checked our dorms for any traces of notes on the covert uses of M16 rifles.

And of course, Jonas Rodney had to play up the totally not suave, socially awkward high school boy act. The paranoid worrywart.

"Um…I'm Jonas," he shifted from foot to foot as Dr. Steve pushed him to the front of the class of girls to introduce himself. He pulled nervously on his tie like it was a lever to teleport him to the other side of the planet. "I'm sixteen. I'm a sophomore-"

"Thus your enrollment in this class," the Countries of the World teacher said drily. "Welcome, Jonas. Please have a seat."

"Excellent job, Jonas," Dr. Steve said and the teacher started to hand out sheets of papers. "Excellent job. Now, Jonas here is on the research track of study." Correction. Jonas had the counter-surveillance skills of Grant. "I don't suppose any of you young ladies could show Jonas around?"

"Humph!" a rather tiny girl sitting at the first aisle made a sound, probably due to the fact that Rebecca Baxter had kicked her chair.

But Dr. Steve didn't notice any of that and said, "Excellent. Jonas, you can spend the day with Ms. …"

"Sutton, Liz Sutton," the girl said.

"Excellent," Dr. Steve said again. "Now, Grant, if you would-"

"I'm Grant," Grant said confidently as he recognized Rebecca Baxter from yesterday and slid into the seat beside her.

I spotted Cameron Morgan sitting at the last aisle of the room. I didn't wait for Dr. Steve to ask me and I immediately took the empty seat beside her, behind Grant.

"I'm Zach and I think I've found my guide."

"Excellent."

* * *

"So, we meet again," I said in a slow drawl once class was over. I didn't wait for an answer as I looked around like a curious tourist would. "So _this _is the famous Gallagher Academy." So this was where my mother grew up. So this was where my mother turned into a murderer.

"Yes," she was surprisingly polite to me, despite what I did to her yesterday. "This is the second-floor corridor. Most of our classes are down this hall." I already knew that. Thanks to mother.

**Observation #5: The Subject is apparently either very well or poorly trained for being able to stay cool-slash-polite in the Operative's presence.**

"And _you're_…the famous Cammie Morgan," every girl liked flattery, right? And I was a man on a mission. It would be nice to make everything easier.

She blinked, surprised that I knew her name. Then after a while, she mumbled, "Come on. Culture and Assimilation is on the fourth floor." Wait, female killers learnt _culture_? Where was the 'Fastest Way to Put a Bullet Through Your Temple' class? Didn't they learn how to kill here?

"Whoa," I stopped suddenly (for effect, that is). "Did you just say you're taking me to _culture_ class?" I could feel a mocking smile spreading across my face, hiding my surprise.

"Yes."

"Boy, when they say you've got the toughest curriculum in the world…they _mean _it." So they weren't like me. At all. They had _culture _class!

"Culture and Assimilation has been a part of the Gallagher curriculum for more than a hundred years, Zach," she said through gritted teeth and had a look in her eyes that seemed like she wanted to shove me down the stairs.

We turned down a corridor as she said, "A Gallagher Girl can blend into any culture- any environment." I smirked. Easy to say for a pavement artist. "Assimilation isn't a matter of social graces. It's a matter of life and death." I chuckled as she said it.

**Observation #6: The Subject is incredibly dramatic. Fortunately, Operative Goode is incredibly dynamic.**

Suddenly, we heard notes of Beethoven floating down the hall and a rather old and fragile lady said, "Today, ladies and gentlemen, we will be studying the art of…the dance!" I arched an eyebrow. So Gallagher Girls had dance class instead of learning how to use rifles. Interesting.

"I have been saving this very special class for the arrival of our very special guests." I couldn't let this opportunity pass so I whispered in Cameron Morgan's ear, "Did you hear that? I'm special."

"That's a matter of-," she started to say reproachfully but the old lady cut in and said, "Oh, Cameron dear, would you and your friend like to demonstrate for the rest of the class?" Then Cameron looked like she wanted to die at that instant. I decided that I liked this Madame Dabney woman.

As we were lead to the middle of the tea room, Madame Dabney said to me, "You much be Zachary Goode." I searched her eyes for any flash of recognition. Any sign she knew my mother. But she must've been a very skilled old lady because she could tell me nothing.

"Welcome to the Gallagher Academy. Now, I must ask that you place your right hand firmly in the center of Cameron's lower back." I smiled rather cockily as I put my arm around her waist, enjoying the dreading look on Cameron's face.

"Okay, now. Everyone find a partner," Madame Dabney instructed. "Yes, girls, some of you will have to take turns being the boy." And she reminded me of Professor Devereux when he said _'Yes, boys, some of you will have to take turns being the girl in this seducing exercise.' _

I patiently watched Jonas step on Liz's foot the same time she stepped on his. I smiled- they looked adorable together. A pair of awkward little turtles. Remind me to get their wedding invitation.

But Cameron wasn't looking at her friends She was glaring sightlessly into my chest and I knew she was thinking of yesterday. When Madame Dabney asked her to put her hand in mine's, she held on like a death grip.

"What's the matter, Gallagher Girl?" I asked. "You're not actually mad about yesterday, are you?"

She didn't answer and continued to stare straight forward (I was pretty sure she wasn't admiring my toned chest). I smiled- she looked so cute when she was silently fuming. She did that little pouty thing girls did and she had a dent between her eyebrows.

"It was a cover, Gallagher Girl. An op," I wondered if I was mean enough to say it, "Maybe you're familiar with the concept?" Yes, I was that mean.

And with a stroke of pure luck, Madame Dabney chose that exact moment to push us closer together to start dancing, "Hold your partners tightly." And Cameron looked like she wanted to bolt.

**Observation #7: The Subject is uncomfortable with close proximity of the Operative. This is hilarious.**

I really do like old little ladies in tea rooms now.

* * *

**07 33 hours**

**Gallagher Academy Grand Hall**

**Day 7 of Gallagher/Blackthorne Exchange Program**

"How is she?"

"Normal," I replied.

Joe turned to look at Cameron Morgan at the breakfast table, "You know what I mean. Your opinion, Zach?"

"She reminds me of Mom," I said softly.

"She looks like Catherine, I know. But she's different."

I scoffed and followed Joe's gaze. Cameron was talking with her friend, Tina Walters, who you should, under no circumstance, believe a single word she says. They were both staring at the sterling-silver orange juice pitcher and I was sure that they weren't just checking up on their make up.

"Not all Gallagher Girls turn out like Catherine, Zach. It's time to let go of this hatred."

"I don't hate Gallagher," I lied.

"I've spent 18 years in the field, Zach. I know hate what I see it," Joe glanced at me. "They aren't assassins, Zach. They aren't-" Joe swallowed. "Like us. They're sisters, they're only ordinary girls. Just smarter and stronger."

I didn't answer.

"I'm taking the class out to town for an op today," Joe said when he noticed my ignorance. "Partner up with Cammie and you'll see."

"What? Am I supposed to get all friendly with her today?" sarcasm was a powerful weapon.

"No. I'm just asking you to suspend judgment."

* * *

"Today's about the basics, ladies and gentlemen," Joe said, twisting around to talk to the class at the back of the van. "I want to see you move; see you work together. Pay attention to your surroundings, and remember- half of your success in this business comes from looking like you belong, so today your cover is that you're a bunch of private-school students enjoying a trip to town." Been there, done that.

"What are we really?" a familiar, slightly British-accented voice piped up.

"A bunch of spies," Joe paused for a while and I could see him flip a quarter into the air in the back view mirror in the van. "Playing tag."

"Brush pass, Ms. Baxter," Joe asked. "Define it?"

"The act of covertly passing an object between two agents." Seventh grade, second semester break, a training op in New York with Mom and Dr. Steve. That was the kind of intensive training the Circle had given me.

"Correct," Joe said and I could feel Cameron's eyes flicker towards me. "The little things can get away from you, ladies and gentlemen. The little things matter."

"So right you are," Dr. Steve chimed in. "As I was telling Headmistress Morgan just this-" I exhaled sharply in frustration. The man should learn how to shut up.

"It's you and the street today," Joe continued like he hadn't heard Dr. Steve speak at all. I admire his ignorance. "Today's test might be low-tech, but this is trade craft at its most essential."

And he pulled out a small box from beneath his seat. It was a cache of comms units and tiny cameras that were concealed within pins and earrings, tie clips and silver cross necklaces.

"Watch. Listen. Remember to communicate. Observe," Joe said as he passed to box around. "Pair off. Blend in, and remember, we'll be watching."

Before I got out of the van, I heard Joe say, "Oh no, Ms. Morgan. I believe you already have a partner."

* * *

**Observation #8: The Subject seems unnaturally uncomfortable. The Operative is confused if this strange behavior is related to the temperature of negative one degree Celsius or the stress of the operation Operative Solomon has given her. Or maybe it's just close proximity with Operative Goode again.**

"Come on, Gallagher Girl," I headed for the square. "This should be fun." I sat down on the steps of the gazebo in the middle of the square. Then I memorized the position of the shops around us.

Movie theatre and Abrams and Son Pharmacy behind us.

Anderson's Accessories on the west.

Dunkin' Donuts on the east.

And south was…Cameron. Staring straight behind me. I had seen enough romance movies to see the hurt in her eyes.

**Observation #9: The Subject seems greatly disturbed by the presence of the pharmacy behind the Operative.**

And I remembered the clandestine boyfriend she had. Josh Abrams. I guessed she would've come down here often to meet him.

"So, come here often?" I couldn't resist.

"I used to, but then the deputy director of the CIA made me promise to stop." She probably wasn't kidding.

I let out a half-laugh and looked up at her. Her gaze was back on me, happier now. That's better.

"Okay, Ms. Walters, you're it," Joe was speaking in my ear. "Be aware of your casual observers and let's make those passes quick and clean."

Tina and Eva walked past each other on the south side of the square. I didn't need to see their hands touch to hear Joe say, "Well done."

I tilted my head back, closed my eyes and felt the weak sunlight warm my face. Blackthorne didn't have much sunlight. I better enjoy it while I can. And, of course, count the windows on the gazebo. Just for a precaution.

"So what about you?" Cameron asked. "Exactly where does the Blackthorn Institute call home?" She had a quirky smirk on her face, like how Mom looked like when she was interrogating someone. Just more…innocent. I liked that quirky smirk on Cameron's face.

"Oh," I cocked an eyebrow. _Remember the Blackthorne burden, Zach._ "That's classified."

"So you can sleep inside the walls of _my _school, but I can't even know where yours _is_?"

I remembered how little she knew about my world and laughed. She'd never understand. "Trust me, Gallagher Girl, you wouldn't want to sleep in my school."

Before Cameron could say anything, Joe fired another instruction into our ears, "Two men are playing chess in the southwest corner of the square. How many moves from checkmate is the man in the green cap, Ms. Baxter?"

"Six," Rebecca replied immediately, her eyes barely leaving Grants'. I smirked. I doubted she would like to even be next to Grant if she knew what he was.

"What do you mean? Why can't you tell me?" Cameron demanded.

**Observation #10: The Subject's curiosity is overwhelming. Or maybe it's just because she's a spy. Not a very good one, though. Spies need to know that they're better off not knowing anything…classified.**

"Just trust me, Gallagher Girl," then another question popped into my head. A question that nobody could answer me. "Can you trust me?" I paused at my own words, still staring into her brown eyes. No one could trust me. No one could trust spies. And definitely not assassins-slash-Circle members.

"Ms. Morrison, you just passed three parked cars on Main Street. What were their tag numbers?" Joe's voice cut into my thoughts but I was still looking into Cameron's eyes. Catherine's eyes. They were exactly like Mother's. They had seen the same thing as Mother when she was her age. How did Mom's eyes get so cold, so evil? Yet Cameron's eyes were warm. Hot chocolate warm. I liked her eyes.

"There was an ATM behind you, Ms. Alvarez. ATMs equal cameras. Tighten it up, ladies."

"Solomon's good." I said automatically.

"Yeah, he is."

"They say you're good, too." The CIA, that is. And this time, the flattery was sincere. I looked into Cameron's eyes again and registered surprise in the brown depths. I smiled.

"Okay, Zach," I heard Joe say. "Without turning around, tell me how many windows over look the square from the west side."

I had already counted. "Fourteen."

To Cameron, I said, "They say you're a real pavement artist." _I knew that from the first time I saw your picture. _

I leaned back on the steps again, "You know, it's probably a good thing we got to trail you in D.C. If you'd been following me, I probably never would have seen you." I steeled myself for a moment. How did a girl like Cammie take praise like this? Spies never got compliments. Their work was never noticed. And they liked it that way.

**Observation #11: The Operative thinks that the Subject does not take praise that well since she turned around and walked away. Then the Operative felt like kicking himself in the head.**

"Nice pass, Ms. Baxter," Joe's voice sounded in my ear. I snapped my head up and focused on Cammie. She was my partner after all.

She turned down a side street on the far side, passing the pharmacy. I saw movement in the shop and I knew Cammie was making a big mistake. The biggest mistake any person who has been in a relationship could ever make.

She saw him.

And he saw her.

"Cammie, is that you?" His voice sounded so immature. And Cammie stopped in mid-step. She was staring at Josh. Her face didn't show a single emotion but I could see it in her eyes. It was the look of a deer caught in headlights. And she made the biggest mistake any covert operative could ever make- she froze on the field.

"Hi, Josh," I heard her voice through the comms unit. I glanced around; nearly every Gallagher Girl was sneaking glances at the pair. Clearly, this clandestine relationship wasn't clandestine anymore.

"Oh, it's a…school thing," Cammie replied.

**Observation #12: The Subject is clinging to her cover. Desperately. And she is about to lose it.**

"So, how have you been?" she asked.

"Okay. How about you?"

"Okay." I could literally feel the lie.

"So we're both okay," Josh (who from this moment I shall dub as Jimmy because of his stupid baby-like face) forced a smile. "Good for us."

The Zach Goode radar senses an awkward moment. Time to fly to the rescue. I stood up casually from the gazebo and started to inch towards the two, planning on how I should perform my 'knight in shining armor' moment.

"Josh." I immediately stiffened. Another voice, another girl. A _girly _girl who liked pink. She looked like walking cotton candy when she came out of the pharmacy's side door. "Josh, your dad said he could…" She spotted Cammie and trailed off. So they knew each other. I'm not sure if the Zach in shining armor package covered catfights.

**The Operative wants to make it out of this with as little claw marks as possible.**

"Oh my gosh, Cammie! It's great to see you!" I raised an eyebrow. Was this sarcasm? Or was this genuine? Then Pink Lady hugged Cammie. I'm guessing it's genuine.

"Hi, DeeDee,"Cammie said. I was well trained enough to know when someone's faking a smile. "It's really…good…to see you to."

**Observation #13: The Subject does not lie beautifully. That's just sad.**

At the corner of my eye, I saw Cammie studying DeeDee and Jimmy. I could see exactly what she was seeing- they tried not to look at each other. But obvious panic showed that they were more than friends now.

Then Joe Solomon's order came at the worst time ever, "Okay, Ms. Morgan, let's see you hand off." But Cammie didn't react. She must either be very highly trained or she was too caught up in her thoughts between Jims and Pink Lady.

**Observation #14: The Subject is either very highly trained or she's too caught up in her thoughts regarding Jimmy and Pink Lady.**

"We're…I mean…I'm…" DeeDee stammered. "I'm on the committee for the spring fling- it's a dance…and you know…kind of a big deal. And Josh is helping me get the businesses to donate door prizes and stuff. For the fling. Next Friday night. And-"

The moment couldn't get any more awkward (and not to mention, the quarter was still in Cammie's gloved hand. Hey, we had a mission to bring home, remember?).

So I strolled over and cut in, "Cammie, there you are." I remembered to look at Jimmy and DeeDee like it was the first time I had ever seen them in my life. Then I turned my gaze back to Cammie. "I was wondering where you'd disappear to." I stretched out my hand to them, "I'm Zach."

After that, many things happened at once. DeeDee gave me a jack o' lantern smile. Jims frowned and made that really, really confused and retarded face when you're doing Advanced Chemistry homework (It was the face that I _don't _do, thank you very much).

And Cammie, being the Gallagher Girl who was trained by Madame Dabney for the past four years, said, "Zach, this is DeeDee. And Josh. They're…" She trailed off. They were, obviously, impossible to classify.

"We're friends of Cammie," DeeDee finished for Cammie.

"Zach and I…" Cammie started to say. I almost frowned, she wasn't supposed to act like this. All her training was slowly slipping away, she was on the verge of letting out something important. In other words, the spy part of her mind was frosting over.

So, to keep the secret of her sisterhood safe, I said, "I go to school with Cammie."

"Really?" DeeDee asked. "I thought it was a girls' school?"

"Actually, my school's doing an exchange with Gallagher this semester," I smiled and slipped my hand into Cammie's.

**Observation #15: The Operative cannot ignore the fact that the Subject's hands, although gloved, were warm and soft.**

Nothing like Mom's. Her hand wasn't commanding or jerking me away sharply. It was…nice. And I liked it.

While I could've stood there and held Cammie's hand for the whole week, I carefully tipped our joined hands so the back of her hand was facing upwards and the quarter easily fell into my palm.

"Oh, that's really great!" DeeDee beamed. But I had kicked enough guys to know that Jimmy was hurting where it hurts most when he looked at us. Not physically though.

"Cam, the van's leaving in ten," it wasn't completely a lie. I nodded at Jims and DeeDee, "It was nice meeting you."

"You too," DeeDee replied but Jimmy said nothing, he was glaring now.

As I walked past the dry cleaners, I heard the rest of their conversation through Cammie's comms.

"Oh…well…I'll let you get back to your party plans," Cammie said and she started to turn away.

"You could come," Jimmy said abruptly. "Next Friday. You know, the whole town's going to be there. You could come if you want." I rolled my eyes. Jimmy Abrams was officially the most pathetic teenage guy on Earth. No wonder he and Cammie didn't make it.

"And bring Zach," DeeDee said. And I didn't need to turn my back to know that Jim winced.

"That sounds like fun." I smiled. The Cameron Morgan I knew was back- she was, once again, The Girl Who Lies.

* * *

"Verdict?" Joe asked at dinner.

I thoughtfully scooped a spoonful of crème brulee, "Not Mom."

"I told you so," Joe still hadn't lost his Blackthorne arrogance. "You should find her more in her free time to get this mission done. After dinner, perhaps?"

I snorted, "The mansion's huge, where am I supposed to look for Cammie?"

Joe raised an eyebrow, "Since when do you call her Cammie?"

"No idea."

He smiled knowingly, "_Le coeur a ses raisons que la raisons ne connaît point_."

"Don't change the subject," I growled.

"Fine, fine. It's all very simple- who is she?"

"Gallagher Girl, sister of Gillian Gallagher," I replied.

"That's right. Find her family and you can find her," Joe nonchalantly finished up his dessert.

* * *

**Observation #16: The Subject is a very sentimental and down to earth person since the Operative found her next to a tapestry of the Gallagher family tree.**

She was gazing longingly at it.

No, it couldn't be just family belonging that brought her here.

The tapestry, it's curving backwards in the draft.

There's something behind it, not solid wall, that is.

Ah, yes. It's a secret passageway.

Cammie wants to go inside but what's holding her back?

Oh, right. Jimmy-visits.

So behind the tapestry is a secret passageway into Roseville, Virginia and Cammie used it quite often until her relationship had been uncovered.

Behold my great and mighty deduction skills.

I stepped closer but Cammie didn't move at all. I doubted that she even heard me at all.

"You know, I don't think I ever got the rest of my tour," I said. "So what do you say? Is this when I get my Cammie Morgan no-passageway-too-secret, no-wall-too-high tour?" I walked past her, hooked a finger behind the tapestry and peeked behind it. Theory confirmed. There was space behind it.

I savored the look of surprise on her face. "How do you know about…"

I pointed to myself and said, "Spy." _slash assassin._ I tilted my head to the side and leaned one shoulder. A small part of my mind reminded me that this was signature body language that I was genuinely engaged in this conversation and was feeling…playful. Or it could mean that I was challenging her.

Both reasons were favorable.

"So," I said when she didn't answer. "That was Jimmy?"

"Josh," she corrected.

**Observation #17: The Subject is still defensive of her ex. It was possible that she still had feelings for him. She needs to learn how to move on.**

"Whatever," I certainly didn't care about his details. I smirked, "He's a cutie." I amuse myself sometimes.

Cammie wasn't feeling that amused. She rolled her eyes and said, "What do you want, Zach? If you came to make fun, go ahead. Mock away."

This was another Catherine Goode moment. So sarcastic and so challenging. It was hard to keep the smiled off my face, "Gee, you know, I would…but you just took the fun out of it."

"Sorry." I was confused. This was another side of Cammie Morgan. Defensive, hard, cold… I didn't like it.

She tried to sidestep me but I blocked her way, "Hey. Why'd you freeze out there today?"

She studied me for a while and said, "I'm fine. I'm over it." No one believes it when you say 'I'm fine.'

"No you aren't, Gallagher Girl. But you will be." I half smiled.

* * *

**22 32 hours**

**Location Unknown**

"You saw her today, didn't you?"

"Yeah, at the square in front of the shop. Said she was on a school trip or something."

The first speaker snorted, "Gallagher Girls are absolute sluts. You should've dumped her."

My fist clenched. Gallagher Girls were anything but sluts.

"I don't know, D-man. She seemed okay at first."

"Josh, you wouldn't know if a slut came up to you and socked you in the face."

I approve with this statement.

Jimmy boy didn't reply and D-man continued to speak angrily, "That slut's crazy, making up some cock-and-bull story about her homeschooled and cat called Suzie. This whole time, she was just some daddy's girl who doesn't care about anyone's feelings."

Then I savored the surprised look on both guys' faces as my fist came out of the dark and slammed into D-man's nose. Before they could come around, I had already reached the tapestry of the Gallagher family tree.

**The heart has reasons that reasons knows nothing of.

* * *

**14 03 hours**

**Day 30 of Gallagher/Blackthorne Exchange Program**

"What's the matter, Gallagher Girl?" I asked Cammie as we started to walk to C&A. "You seem…jumpy." And the fact that she flinched every time anyone mentioned the word 'dress'.

"Nothing," she said quickly. Then we entered the C&A classroom and sat down.

"This all-school exam…" Madame Dabney was speaking in this weird bubbly voice. It was quite irritating. "Ooh, ladies and gentlemen. In all my years of teaching at this fine institution, I have never ever had the opportunity to organize such an exciting educational experience."

The class shifted around me. Liz Sutton went still, Eva and Tina looked away from Grant and Jonas was starting to look like an overcooked lobster. (Yeah, he's still in his 'awkward sophomore' cover. It's also very irritating.)

"This Friday evening, all students in grades eight through twelve will be invited to a formal examination," Madame Dabney paused as if she expected a huge round of applause. "A ball, ladies and gentlemen. There's going to be a ball!"

The class shifted around me again. Tine audibly gasped, Liz's eyes were about to fall out of their sockets, Jonas was red in the face, Grant was probably laughing and Cammie…well, she had as much expression as a rock, like she had known this would happen all along. And she was probably dreading it.

So I smirked.

But before Madame Dabney said, "Tomorrow during this time, you will each be fitted for a gown." She smiled at the girls. Then she turned to us, "And tuxedos. On Friday evening you will be asked to participate in a cumulative examination- a night that will encompass everything we teach. And you will be expected to dance."

Tuxes plus dancing with a touch of espionage. I hope Jonas stops his 'awkward sophomore' thing before Friday night.

* * *

According to Jonas Rodney and the evidence of Grant Chapman, Blackthorne Boys are equipped to do anything- mentally, physically and emotionally. But the few hours before the dance quite proved Operative Rodney and Chapman wrong.

"Stupid, damned tie," the seniors were swearing at inanimate objects.

"Great, I pulled a muscle in P&E. How the hell am I supposed to dance?" juniors were freaking out.

"What. The. HELL?" the sophomores were frustrated at their _hair._ (Jonas said that, not me.) He was standing in front of his mirror, a tube of hair gel in hand and his hair looked like some woodland animal had crawled into it and died. So Grant went over to him and gave Jonas a noogie. But hey, it helped his hair look 'sexy and tousled'. Direct quote from Grant.

After everyone had calmed down, I looked towards Grant and Jonas, "It's time."

* * *

"Well," I walked up to Cammie. "You don't look hideous." She was wearing a strapless, wine red, floor length dress and high heels. (She was balanced quite well on them. Bravo.) Her hair was pulled up in a French twist sort of thing and Macey McHenry did her make-up. (I recognized the signature bold eyeliner.)

**Observation #18: The Subject did not, in fact, look hideous. She looked stunning.**

"Ditto," she replied. I suddenly felt a bit self-conscious in my simple tux. Maybe I should've got some of Jonas' hair gel. But I had no time to consider since Cammie suddenly jerked at an awkward angle. Hmm, maybe she didn't balance so well on these heels after all.

"Easy, Gallagher Girl," I suppressed a laugh and took her elbow. (I was a gentleman after all, thank you very much.)

She pulled her arm away, "I am perfectly capable of walking down the stairs by myself." So stubborn.

Of course, she was capable of throwing me down the stairs as well.

Then Madame Dabney came by in her gauzy scarf, "A lady always gracefully accepts a gentleman's arm when offered, Cammie dear."

I really do love little old ladies in tea rooms.

"Stop it."

"What?" she was probably jealous of my confidence since she was quite the definition of worry.

"You're enjoying this way too much. You're smirking." My smirk indeed widened as she said that.

"I've got news for you, Gallagher Girl, if you're not enjoying this, you're in the wrong business."

* * *

As you probably know, the Gallagher Academy's campus is a mansion. But I was used to seeing it as a school (and I'm pretty sure everyone did).

Tonight, it was again, itself.

A mansion for balls and black tie parties.

"Hello, ladies and gentlemen. You all look very nice, but I'm afraid you aren't quite finished getting ready." Joe walked up to us with a stack of files underneath his arm. "I'm afraid we didn't mention that tonight is something of a _masquerade_ ball."

"But we haven't got mask…or disguises or-" Courtney started.

"These are your disguises, Ms. Bauer." Joe cut her off and started to hand out the folders. "Cover legends, ladies and gentlemen. You have three minutes to memorize every piece of information within them."

Immediately, Liz's hand shot into the air.

Joe smiled. "Even if you are _not_ on the CoveOps track, Ms. Sutton. Spies are the ultimate actors, ladies and gentlemen. It's the heart of what we do. So tonight your mission is simple: you will become somebody else."

He started to walk away but paused to say, "It's an exam, people. Culture, languages, observation… The real tests in these subjects don't have anything to do with words on a piece of paper. Tonight isn't about knowing the answers, ladies and gentlemen. It's about _living_ them."

I looked down at the file Jonas handed to me. I expected a driver's license, an ID or at least a passport. But all I found were a few newspaper clippings about robberies at the Louvre, the New York Gallery of Contemporary Art and the National Museum of Art in Beijing. All the pictures in the clippings were photos of stolen artwork with my silhouette in front of them.

I smiled. I knew exactly who and what I was. And I just hope that Cammie's cover didn't have anything against charming and debonair international art thieves.

* * *

I was dancing with Liz when I noticed something wrong.

"Ms. Morgan, you look just beautiful." Dr. Steve said to Cammie. Dr. Steve was, after all, a Circle of Cavan member and no doubt he knew about my mission with Cammie. What was he doing with her tonight? Why was he being all…_flirty_? (I know Dr. Steve and he is a low functioning sociopath.)

He was the only person that asked her to dance. He, the person who had taught me more about Special Operations than Professor Devereux, had made a mistake about her cover legend. This was not possible, unless…

Then I recognized that glint in his eyes. He wasn't Dr. Steve tonight. He was a member of the Circle.

"I'm sorry. You must have confused me with someone else. My name is Tiffany St. James." Cammie replied politely. I wanted to yell at her to get out of there.

But as a highly trained assassin-slash-operative, my body did a reflex action. (Which really means doing the opposite of screaming at Cammie to get away from Dr. Steve.) I twirled Liz and grinned at her.

"Excellent, Ms. Morgan…I mean, Ms. _St. James_." Dr. Steve shook his head in amusement. "Just excellent." The only reason why Dr. Steve should add the word 'just' to his 'excellent' is when he's up to no good.

"And I was named after my grandmother… And I'm a Gemini…and a vegetarian…and…" Liz rattled on about her cover.

I laughed and twirled her. At the same time, I kept an eye on Cammie and Dr. Steve.

* * *

**Number of hours the ball lasted: 5 hours and 27 minutes**

**Number of people Operative Goode danced with: 57 (This thing counted for a grade, after all and dancing with more people serves as multiple-angle surveillance for both the Subject and/or Dr. Steve.)**

**Number of times Operative Goode wanted to confront Dr. Steve: 57**

**Number of successful confrontations: 0 (Because the rat disappeared somewhere so the Operative had no choice but to dance.)**

**Then the Operative realized the best way to keep the Subject safe was to keep the Subject close to himself. Which means…**

"Tiffany is the _life_ of the party," I said as I walked towards Mr. Mosckowitz and Cammie. "Excuse me, Mr. Secretary, but I believe this is your drink." I offered him a glass.

He twirled his fake mustache until it came off, then quickly stuck it back on, "Oh yes. It is!" He took the glass and leaned in to Cammie, "It is my drink, isn't it?"

"Yes," Cammie whispered back.

"Thank you, my good man," he said to me, his voice becoming British. "Good show!" I was about to say something witty back when Cammie's eyes were focused on something far away. She stood up straighter, her position tenser and her chin was tilted higher. It was her Gallagher stance.

I followed her gaze and traced it back to her mother. But _why?_ The Headmistress was looking much more worried than when I danced with her. (Grant dared me to do that.)

"Isn't that right, Tiffany?" Mr. Mosckowitz said and our gazes snapped back to him. And Cammie hesitated for a while before nodding.

**Observation #19: The Subject appears to be worried and concerned about something.**

Obviously, something was wrong. And that was what I was here for.

"I wonder, Mr. Secretary, would you mind if I borrowed Tiffany for a moment?" I asked him.

"Not at all," he replied.

"They're playing our song," I put my drink on a passing tray, took Cammie's arm smoothly and pulled her onto the dance floor.

"So tell me, Tiffany St. James," I said. "What does a girl like you do for fun?"

"I didn't tell you my name was Tiffany St. James. How did you know?" Her worries seem to be gone now.

**Observation #20: The Subject seems to have recovered from her earlier shock.**

"Oh," I cocked an eyebrow. "I always make it a point to know the names of-" I saw Dr. Steve lurking in the corners of the Grand Hall, looking straight at us. I instinctively held Cammie tighter and closer. "-beautiful women."

Then I dipped her. And it was a good thing I had because with Cammie out of my line of sight, I could see that Dr. Steve had something sinister in his hand now and he was turning it over and over in his palm. My instincts told me that the object was bad news.

So I did something that I wasn't very proud of.

As I winked at Cammie, I…unclasped her strapless bra.

"Come on, Gallagher Girl," I spun her around, making sure the bra was correctly unclasped. "Relax a little." The loosening of her muscles should make the bra looser and hopefully she would leave the Grand Hall and I could deal with Dr. Steve.

**The Operative really wants to kick himself in head for doing such a horrible thing and not confronting Dr. Steve earlier.**

I held Cammie's waist and I felt a pressure building up on my arm. Yes, the bra was sliding downwards now. I looked into her eyes and hopefully, this staring would make her want to leave the room even more.

It worked.

"I gotta go," she said suddenly and pulled away. I wanted to heave a sigh of relief and maybe smile for a bit but the guy in me reminded my facial muscles that I had no clue what was happening to her.

"Ms. Morgan!" Madame Dabney walked by and warned her.

"I mean," Cammie turned back and said, "if you could excuse me for a moment. Thank you very much for the dance."

I made sure my face didn't betray anything. She started to walk away again but I held onto her hand until I could see the outline of her bra working its way lower and lower and I was sure that she would go far away from the Grand Hall (and away from Dr. Steve).

Once her back was turned, I immediately disappeared behind the Beethoven string quartet. (No one actually bothers to check the back door there.) And I appeared a little way off the front doors of the Grand Hall, where I saw Dr. Steve talking to Cammie. I swore under my breath because my plan kind of backfired on me.

**Change of plans: The Subject's safety comes first. Get Dr. Steve away from the Subject and interrogate him later.**

"Oh, excellent, Ms. Morgan…or shall I say Ms. St. James…" he winked. _Get away from him, Cammie! _"I was hoping-"

"Sorry, Dr. Steve, I've got to do…something." Then Cammie disappeared down the hallway. Dr. Steve wanted to follow but I stood in front of him, blocking his way.

"Let _me _handle this." I insisted. I hoped I sounded like I was supposed to be helping him with whatever Circle op he was doing. Or else Mom would know…

And if he were under the impression I was on his side, he'd make sure no one came close to us. (That was good since…you know…) I didn't wait for his reaction and I sped towards the Gallagher family tapestry.

* * *

I arrived there just seconds before Cammie appeared.

"What are you doing here?" she was breathing heavily.

"Looking for you," I controlled my breathing and made sure it didn't look like I had sprinted a mile like her.

"Why?"

"Because this is where you came the other day."

"Oh."

I stepped closer and put my hands into my pockets. If I knew Gallagher Girls like I did, they'd register this body language for putting someone at ease. (But it's clearly not putting Cammie at ease.)

I tilted my head and asked, "So what is it, Gallagher Girl?"

I would probably never know her answer for the rest of my life because sirens exploded all around us.

"CODE BLACK CODE BLACK CODE BLACK" the mechanical voice echoed around the corridor.

I think at the same moment, a small mound landed on Cammie's feet.


	2. Chapter 2

You've probably heard of the description 'and the place shut down around us'. You'd think lights out, doors close and eerie silence.

But at the Gallagher Academy, _especially _at the Gallagher Academy, these things are taken more literally.

The tapestry of the Gallagher family shifted backwards and was sealed behind stone. Thick metal shutters slammed down against glass windows, blocking the moonlight out. And Cammie and I were submerged in darkness.

Suddenly, a thin but firm grip appeared on my hand and started to drag me down the corridor. I flinched. This was exactly how Mom would jerk me away from pursuers. This was too Catherine.

I fought the urge to pull away. _This is Cammie. Not Mom. Not the Circle. _I distracted myself by jerking my chin at the lanterns hanging from the ceiling that were now emitting yellow light.

"I thought those were for decoration." I yelled over the sirens.

"If everything goes right, they are." Then what was going wrong?

"So this means…" I was cut off by the sound of support staff running past us.

"Something is seriously not right." I cursed in my head. Who else was to cause this mayhem but Dr. Steven Sanders?

"It's a security protocol," Cammie explained loudly. "There must have been a breach." _No, the breach was here all along. I should've stopped it earlier. _

"The whole system goes into lockdown- nothing gets in." As if to prove her point, steel doors fell from the ceiling and sealed the corridor behind us.

"And nothing gets out." She finished. We passed the library. The bookshelves, the couches, the tables…they were all spinning away into who-knows-where. And the whole room literally disappeared.

"Does this happen a lot?" I asked. I dreaded the answer.

"No."

At the corner of my eye, I saw shifty movement. It was a man, neither Joe nor support staff. He moved so quickly that if I weren't a trained operative, I wouldn't have caught him. And in his hand was a familiar sinister object.

I glanced at Cammie. She was looking wildly from left to right. She wouldn't notice anything. I quickly pulled away from her grasp and darted down the hallway. My last glimpse was of Cammie being illuminated by flashlights.

* * *

"What were you doing with her?" I had followed the shadow into an unfamiliar part of the mansion and was greeted by no other than Dr. Steve.

"No. What were _you_ doing with her?" I shot back. I clung to my cover. "My mission was going fine until you started to talk to her."

"You noticed." Dr. Steve raised his eyebrows but there was no surprise in his eyes.

"You forget what I'm doing here." I said coldly. "Or did Mom forget to tell you?" I loved taunting his authority.

Dr. Steve didn't answer. Instead, he looked at me like he wanted to dissect my brain. Typical psychologist.

"You caused the Code Black." I stated flatly.

"Good guess." He smiled and took out the sinister object from his jacket pocket. "Stole this from Headmistress Morgan's office, last time I went in." It was a tube of mascara. But instead of uncapping the longer end of the tube where the make-up brush was, he unscrewed the shorter end and I saw a tiny black button.

Dr. Steve smirked, "Black mascara for Code Black. Ironic."

"What for?" I asked.

"My mission. My orders. It's classified." He widened his sickly smile. "I'm sure you understand that fully."

"You didn't need a mission. I was there." I growled.

"You're helping me, Zach. To understand her behavior and know her routine." Dr. Steve said it like it solved every problem on Earth. Which, obviously, didn't.

"So?" I snapped.

"I keep tabs on you. Just now was just a trial if you were good enough and if my tabs were correct." Dr. Steve shrugged.

"Well, I hope they didn't disappoint you."

"No, they were excellent. I'll report this to Catherine later on."

I couldn't help saying: "Excellent."

* * *

**There were now three things the Operative was sure of. **

**1. Dr. Steve needed Cammie. Or more like the Circle needed Cammie for some reason. So the Operative had a lot more work to do. **

**2. Dr. Steve kept tabs on the Operative and for resistance workers, that isn't good for business. Therefore, there this covert way of Dr. Steve 'keeping tabs' on the Operative must be eliminated. The Operative deduces (from his many years of training side-by-side with Dr. Steve) that there must be a tracker somewhere on him. Most likely in the soles of his shoes.**

**3. If there was really a tracker in the soles of the Operative's shoes, there was pretty much no way of taking the tracker out as Dr. Steve has confiscated all sharp materials from Blackthorne Boys (due to Advanced Protection courses) and people would notice if the Operative was spending too much time staring at his shoes.**

Having spent a month at the Gallagher Academy, I thought I had seen quite a lot. I've seen it in the spring rain. I've seen it as a school for future spies. I've seen it as a beautifully grand mansion and I've seen it as a place more secure than Fort Knox.

But I haven't seen it as a real…_girls' school._

Except for the Saturday after the ball.

Exhibit A: There were girls gossiping at ungodly hours of the morning. Despite the fact that it was a weekend and everybody was behind on sleep because of the ball.

Exhibit B: Pretty much the whole female population of the school didn't put any make-up on even in the presence of boys and their hair was shaped in an odd way. Jonas said that it was because of all those hairdos that had been twisted, pinned and tied up from last night.

Exhibit C: Everyone was guessing blindly about the Code Black last night. The teachers had said it was a false alarm but obviously, they didn't buy the story. Reverse psychology, eh?

With this pandemonium about, Tina Walters was on the case.

"So, Cammie," Tina said, her tone completely down to business, as she slid into the seat next to Cammie at lunch. She was talking loud enough for me to hear. "Is it true that you weren't actually sneaking out to see Josh-"

"That's right, Tine. I wasn't." Cammie said, relieved.

But Tine wasn't finished, "-Because according to my sources, instead of going to that dance in town, you were actually sneaking out to participate in a rouge mission for the CIA."

"Tina! Of course I wasn't!" Cammie's voice went up an octave.

"Really?" Tina leaned forward, like she could stare the truth out of Cammie. I hoped she couldn't. And I hoped Cammie wouldn't say anything suspicious…

"No, Tine. I wasn't sneaking out to go to the dance in Roseville. I wasn't sneaking out because the CIA needed me. _I wasn't sneaking out!_"

Tina rolled her eyes. Then Cammie got all defensive.

"Tina, I'm serious. You can ask my mom." Tina snorted. _Oh, no. Cammie. Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say i- _"You can ask Zach."

This piece of information was of course, worth a lot to Tina Walters. She whispered something too soft to hear but I didn't need to use my lip-reading skills because she yelled it out later on, "_You were with Zach!" _

Time to be Mr. Arrogant.

"So, Zach." Tina asked me while I ate. "Is it true that you were with Cammie last night during the Code Black?"

"Cammie?" I feigned oblivion. "Morgan?" I laughed. "Why would I be with her?"

At the corner of my eye, I saw Cammie's cheeks start to grow red. And the worst part of all, she didn't look mad. She looked embarrassed and she looked like she was about to cry. _I'm so sorry. _

I wanted to go over there and ask if she was okay. To offer her a hug or anything that could brighten her day. I wanted so badly to. But I couldn't. So I didn't.

"Yeah, sure, I saw her at the party." I continued without missing a beat. I laughed a half-laugh. "But I wasn't _with_ her." I didn't care that Tina was totally drinking this up. I only cared that I was telling one of the most horrible lies I've ever said. And I wanted to get out of here.

"Zach," Cammie started. I knew she was going to ask me questions. I knew she probably wanted to kick me where it hurts most. In the physical sense. But Tina, Bex, Liz and the whole school was staring at us so I could only look forwards and quickly say, "See ya later."

* * *

Cammie never ceased to amaze me so when she found me later in the P&E barn, punching a heavy bag, I wasn't surprised at all.

And I definitely wasn't surprised about the scorn on her face.

"You liar!" she yelled at me. Well, Cammie, if you haven't noticed, one of the best things I do is lying.

I did the obvious. I pointed to myself and said, "Spy." Then I continued to hit the bag. I don't know if her anger affected me or did I accidentally let slip something through body language but Cammie was looking at me like…like I had something to hide. I swallowed. _Could she guess?_

"Zach!" she yelled again after a few moments of fuming. "You _know _I didn't breach security last night. You know I didn't cause the Code Black."

"Oh, I thought it was a false alarm." I said sarcastically.

Cammie didn't say anything and just punched the bag.

I raised my eyebrows. "Not bad." I stepped around to hold the bag. Let's see if she could put enough strength in her fist to move it. "Put you shoulder into it now."

"I know how to do it." She snapped.

"Do you?" Summer before ninth grade. Extensive Combat Training. With the monks of Shao Lin temple. Of course, Cammie didn't know about this so my reflex action was to smile cockily at her.

Then she kicked the bag. Hard.

It hit me in the stomach and I doubled over, wheezing, "Nice one, Gallagher Girl."

"Don't call me-"

"Look," I wanted to end this between us for once and for all. "Do you really want everyone knowing we were together?" And this wasn't concerning the mission. At all. "Do you think that maybe what happened last night isn't any of Tina Walter's business?"

"Besides," I smiled and wiped away the sweat on my upper lip. "I thought you liked your interludes secret and mysterious. Your boyfriends private." At that moment, I swear, it wasn't the teasing side of me talking.

"We weren't having an _interlude_. And you are _not_ my boyfriend."

"Yeah." I don't know why but I started to punch the bag harder and said curtly. "I noticed." Something inside me felt like it got stabbed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Cammie said suspiciously.

I stopped. I wondered how much it would take for Cammie to catch on. I shook my head in disappointment. "You're the Gallagher Girl. You figure it out."

"Besides," I continued. "At my school, we learn how to keep a secret."

"Yeah. I know. I go to a school like yours." Oh, Cammie. You could not have been more wrong.

I looked at her. Perhaps she could see something different in my eyes now, "Do you?"

* * *

"I need my dental floss back, Grant." Jonas snapped.

"What for?" Grant scoffed, tossing the small white box in the air and catching it. Jonas made a grab for it but Grant just threw it up higher, out of Jonas' reach.

"My teeth, of course." Jonas lunged onto Grant's bed and tried to pry it away from Grant's grip. (Which is rather impossible. And this is from someone who played basketball with him.)

"_Come and get it!_" Grant taunted in a singsong voice, dancing around the room. He pulled a bit of floss out, stretched it until it was taut and it made a 'twang' noise.

"Give it!" Jonas growled and launched himself at Grant. Jonas' hand closed around the piece of string Grant had pulled out but Grant jerked it out of Jonas' grip.

"Ow!" Jonas yelled. He stumbled back and cradled his hand. "You burned me!"

Grant stopped, "What?"

"The floss. You pulled it away and it burned me." Jonas hissed and held up his hand. There was a thin red line showing across his fingers where he grabbed the tight string.

"Whoops." Grant shrugged and lobbed the box of dental floss back to Jonas' bed. "Who knew it could do that?"

Then it hit me.

"Jonas! Give me the floss!" I stood up from my bed and stretched out my arm for the box.

"Why?" Jonas raised an eyebrow like he thought I was going to steal it or something.

"I need it."

"Fine." Jonas said grudgingly and handed it over.

With my school shoes in hand and floss in the other, I locked myself in the bathroom. I studied my shoes carefully. They were normal, leather shoes. Nothing special…except that my right shoe's heel was slightly thicker than the other. Bingo.

I flipped the shoe over, so that the sole was facing upwards. I cut a piece of dental floss and pulled it tight like Grant did. Then I placed the tight string against the soft rubber and pulled it from left to right. The movement was like shining my shoes with a cloth, just that I was working on the wrong side.

Before long, the string cut through the rubber and I could see a glint of metal. I positioned the floss at another angle and started to use the string to saw through the rubber. Now, there was a small 'X' on the heel of my shoe.

I used my pinky to wedge open the four flaps of the 'X' and there it was- the familiar Circle tracker. Dr. Steve must've planted it in there when he gave us the new uniform. I took the round chip out of my shoe and crushed it with my palm.

I smiled. He wouldn't be able to 'keep tabs' on me now.

There was just one problem- I think I've used up Jonas' dental floss.

**A/N: Thanks to all who have review/favorited/subscribed for alerts! I had no idea I'd even get a response so when I came home and saw my inbox full of reviews, I fell off my chair. And I'm not exaggerating. So again, thanks! (Fanfiction should do this author/fan gathering some time and we'll be wearing name tags with our user names on it and we can talk about ideas and stories for the whole night in person.)**

**I know some people were talking about the length of the chapters and apologies for that. I'm still a bit new to so I'll try to see if I can shorten it somehow. Thankfully, this chapter is a lot shorter so I hope you can read it easier. (I used a really roundabout, twisted way to do this so I really need to look into the length thing...)**

**Anyways, you can follow me on Twitter. ( Idris_TARDIS) You can ask me questions about stuff/drop in comments, I also tweet some cool stuff once in a while and I tweet spoilers sometimes. :) **

**Cheers,**

**AwesomePP**


	3. Chapter 3

_Wait. Stop. Don't move. Don't breathe. Look. _

I froze once I stepped into our dorms on Saturday night. Something moved. Something had been shifted. So tiny that if I weren't trained as an operative, I wouldn't have noticed.

"Zach, if it isn't too much trouble, maybe you could move aside and let us into the room?" Jonas said sarcastically.

"Sorry," I muttered and stepped to the right to let the rest of my classmates into the common room.

**The Operative has observed tiny signs that the Blackthorne Boys' dormitory has recently had some unwanted guests.**

Common room computers.

The keyboards and mouse have been placed a bit too tidily.

_Liz. _

Drawers and wardrobes.

Closed a bit too shut.

Bed sheets.

Just the teensy bit ruffled. But no Blackthorne Boy would ever let his sheets be ruffled. We were trained to be spotless.

The scent of perfume in the air.

_Bex's perfume. _

And something…musky and familiar.

_Cammie's scent._

I frowned. I knew Cammie was mad about the Code Black thing but I never anticipated _this _from her. But hey, you learn a new thing everyday. The next thing that was on my mind was _'What did she do in here?'_ Besides going through our stuff and computers, of course. I looked up and I saw my answer.

_Bugs. _

She wouldn't be able to plant radio-transmitting bugs because of the jammers around the Gallagher Academy.

No radio-transmitting bugs meant wires. And wires meant trails to them.

Of course, it would be stupid to have wires hanging around the place so the bugs must be close to vents.

There was an air vent almost directly above me and a tiny black wire that wasn't there two hours ago. I reached up and tugged on it- I couldn't pluck it down. Just as I thought, there were wires going down the vent and to their observation post. I'd follow them on Sunday night. (I knew for a fact that Cammie had dinners with her mom and her friends wouldn't miss the chef's crème brulee for nothing.)

There were a total of three air vents in the common room. All three of them had bugs and I left two. If I disabled all of them, Cammie would know I was on to them and who knows what would they do next. (Although I'm sure Bex would suggest spiking my drinks with truth serums.)

I looked down and reached over to Jonas' sneakers. Just as I thought…

_Trackers in shoes. _Classic.

Security protocol states that if any suspicious tracking device is put on operatives, we should destroy them ASAP.

But this was Cammie. This was…I don't know…adorable?

**The Operative feels kind of warm and fuzzy inside and according to the observation of Operative Rodney, he was smiling like an idiot. But unlike Operative Rodney, Operative Goode has also noticed that his pulse was accelerated and pupils were dilated.**

**And having studied in Advanced Sociology, the Operative has detected telltale signs of someone having feelings for another person. In a more…intimate way.**

At this point, I think I had slumped against the wall with an uncontrollable urge to punch myself in the face.

_Freaking hell, Zach. This is a mission. THIS. IS. A. MISSION. _

So?

_You are supposed to divorce yourself from feelings. Any feelings at all. _

I can't help this. I'm not a machine.

_The only way is to hope that Cammie doesn't like you._

So I watched myself break my own heart.

* * *

**02 25 hours**

**Location Unknown**

I had followed the wires in the vents to a space. It was half corridor and half room. The walls had Evapopaper stuck on them with surveillance equipment scattered on the floor. There wouldn't be anything interesting in the surveillance equipment so I studied the notes on the wall carefully, tracing Cammie's handwriting with a finger, listening to the paper crinkle under my touch in the dark.

_Bex- Grant and the senior with wavy hair. _

_Liz- Jonas and that junior with green eyes._

_Macey - Eight grade boys. Any one of them. _

_Cammie- Zach._

With that, I leaned my head against the wall and swore out loud. It felt good.

* * *

Cammie was _making _me like her. And I have to admit, she was pretty good at it.

"Hey, Gallagher Girl." I smiled confidently at her after C&A. (Reflex reaction. Inside, I was hyperventilating.) "What can I do for you?"

"Mr. Smith says our midterm papers have to be a joint project. And my mother said that I should make an effort to 'embrace the collaborative nature of this exchange experience'." Cammie said.

I raised my eyebrows. "And you want to embrace me?" Did I really just say that?

"Only in the academic sense. Look, do you want to do this project or not?" Great, she was getting short with me. I am a total fool. No, I had to stop thinking about these problems. (_Well, good luck with that_.) She was on a mission. A cover. An op. She was using me to get information about the Code Black.

"So?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Sure, Gallagher Girl." I smiled and turned to walk down the corridor. The logical part of me was currently going overdrive. Cammie just asked me out. _She asked me out. _Not exactly but… _What if she likes me back? _No, no, no. She must not fall in love on the mission. It's a job. _You like her. _I can't. _Yes, you do. _

But I was a highly trained operative. I was trained to do the opposite. And I was trained to cling to my cover until the very end. So I did.

I stopped in mid-step, turned around and yelled, "It's a date!"

* * *

**The Operative is aware that he is on a mission to observe the Subject under all circumstances and preferably _alone_.**

**And the Operative wants to inform the Subject that she should really stop her 'research' about the Code Black incident. She might find out about things that should be kept out of the Gallagher Academy. Hence, the table at the very back of the library so the difficulty of anyone eavesdropping is highest.**

**The Operative is also aware that this may not be beneficial towards the mission because…you know…'feelings'.**

"Hello, Gallagher Girl." I greeted her as she walked into the library.

She sat down on the seat across me, "So, what should we start on?"

"I don't know." Progress reports on your bugs? Ask me a few questions about the Code Black? Or we could start with me begging you to stop all of this. (But I don't beg so option 3 is quite invalid.)

Cammie paused. She didn't half open her mouth like people did when they wanted to say something but changed their minds. She just froze for a split second and eased back into her chair. She didn't say anything either. But her eyes told a different story.

"Zach." Cammie started. I lifted my head, readying myself for any questions. "So, I was thinking we could look at the impact of propaganda in third world economies?"

"That's what you were thinking?" I had to say, I was slightly disappointed in her. I guess we handled reverse psychology differently. I tried looking at her in the eye. Maybe she'd see something in my eyes.

"Yes." Something inside me died a little. "So…I guess we should outline the report and summarize our notes and-"

I know I'm not exactly the most straightforward person on the planet and most of our work is done rather covertly and indirectly but heck, I needed answers.

I cut her off, "Gallagher Girl, is there something you wanted to ask me?" _Anything about the Code Black so you can stop conducting surveillance on our rooms?_

"No." I knew Cammie well enough to know she was lying. (And, yeah, I was a trained operative.)

The Operative is getting more discouraged by the minute.

"So…" Cammie started again but she didn't carry on.

"_So…_"

"So what do you think about the Gallagher Academy?"

I tried to laugh but I remembered Mom...then Cammie. _You changed everything. _"Oh. It's swell." I wondered why I had become British. Grant must be rubbing off on me.

Cammie just gave me a strange look and returned to her notebooks. I noticed her eyes were glazed and darted around the page.

**Observation #21: The Subject was clearly not reading her notes. Neither was the Operative who was currently fighting internal battles between whether he should leave the topic of surveillance alone or not and was about to drown from disappointment.**

I was wondering what to say next since it was obvious none of us were really studying but then two eighth grade girls ran past. They stopped and glanced at us then started to giggle.

Let's just say my 'dark and brooding' look never came in handier than this moment as they immediately turned and sped away.

**Observation #22: Despite the annoying disturbance, the Subject has remained indifferent.**

"You handled that pretty well." I nodded towards the direction where the girls had dashed off.

"Well, I've had some practice, I guess." Cammie did a half-shrug. "Besides, sticks and stones." Then she fell silent.

I felt disappointed for what felt like the ninth hundred time that night. And there was only so much disappointment a guy can take. So the guy impulses in me decided to cut to the chase.

I leaned back on my chair and laced my fingers behind my head. "I gotta say, Gallagher Girl. I'm a little disappointed."_ Maybe I should mention something about the Code Black thing. To get things moving...and interesting. _

"Disappointed!" Cammie said rather loudly.

I laughed, "Yeah, Gallagher Girl. I thought you had a reputation for being…proactive?"

"Yeah." She started. "Well, what would _you_ do if everyone thought you breached security?" I think we both know the answer to that.

I smiled and leaned forwards. This conversation was much better. I was leading her on…again. "I'd probably find out everything I could about everyone who…was _new_? Who maybe didn't have an alibi on the night of the ball? I might even try to get close to anyone I suspected."

I leaned in close. High proximity made Cammie uncomfortable, as noted somewhere earlier on. This was kind of the final proof. "I might even bug their rooms if I got a chance."

"Hahahahaha." She laughed. She knew exactly what I was talking about but like me, she stuck with her cover. I smirked and silently reminded her '_Never assume. Always anticipate.'_

Because I was going for my next move on this 'espionage' chessboard.

"But _you_ wouldn't do any of that, would you, Gallagher Girl?" I stood up.

"Of course I-" I admired her persistence and dedication to her cover. But there was nothing you could do when you're checkmated.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of the bugs she had planted in our dorms. I dropped the wire on the table and leaned close to Cammie's ear. "I'm not all bad, Gallagher Girl."

She was blinking at the wire on the table but I was already grabbing my jacket, "Of course, I'm not all good, either."

When she didn't respond, I called, for a final flourish, "Thanks for the date!"

* * *

"Did you know this would happen?" I wondered out loud.

"No but I do hope for beneficial scenarios." Joe replied

"Beneficial!" I blurted out before I could stop myself. "Why are you not doing anything?"

Joe shrugged, "What can I do? I can't stop emotions."

"I don't know. Pull me out of this, abort the mission, anything!" I said. "You can't let me go with this. No operative should be blinded by emotions."

"You're not blinded, Zach." Joe answered simply.

"I've heard stories. Operatives get killed because of these stupid mistakes. They do stupid things and they go six feet under."

Joe chuckled. "Sometimes, it's these stupid things we do for love that really matters. Bitterness is a paralyzer- it makes you lazy and passive. Love is a more vicious motivator."

"Which means…?" I scoffed.

But Joe only said, "Keep her safe. Make sure she gets out of this alive. In our business, it's these stupid things we do that marks our success."

"I don't love Cammie," _…yet. _A small voice in my head whispered.

Joe sighed. "Life is short, Zach. Especially for us. If you die fighting for this, make sure Cammie come out alive. Promise me this."

"I can't promi-"

"Promise me."

"I promise."

**A/N: Wow...this chapter was one of the trickiest to write- bipolar feelings and mixed signals galore! I had quite a struggle myself. Anyways, I wholeheartedly thank all who have reviewed and favorited! I do read all the reviews and I just love them. (If you have any helpful suggestions, I'm willing to listen to them.) They brighten up my day!**

**To readers that tell me to update crazily: You guys are adorable, I could just hug you... :) I'll try to update as soon as I'm done with 7-10 pages which should be around half a week or an entire week. (I get the feeling of not updating **)**

**And one more thing- I might be writing Zach's POV for Don't Judge a Girl By Her Cover as well. I'm still thinking about this, though. Hopefully my love for Zach will win this internal debate. **

**Once again, thank you and happy reading! **


	4. Chapter 4

"Lies," Joe said as he walked into the CoveOp's classroom. "We tell them to our friends. We tell them to our enemies. And eventually…" I knew what was coming next. "We tell them to ourselves."

Then I breathed a sigh of relief. Joe, unlike the teachers at Blackthorne, didn't stop to glance or shake their head slightly at me and turned to write something on the blackboard.

"A lie is typically accompanied by what physical symptoms, Ms. Lee?" Joe asked.

"Dilated pupils, increased pulse and atypical mannerisms." As Kim recited, Cammie's gaze lowered until she was staring at the tabletop. It didn't take professional training to know she was thinking about last night.

"Spies tell lies, ladies and gentlemen, but that's not what today is about." Joe continued. "Today is about how to spot them. Now, a seasoned operative will know how to control their pulse and voice." _Freshman year spring break. Blackthorne's basement. I had wires taped to every pulse point of my body with a mic pressed up to my face. _"But for the purpose of today's lesson, I think these will come in handy."

The Gallagher Academy had invented some pretty impressive and useful gadgets (duct tape and pillow cases doubling as parachutes takes a real genius to produce even the blueprints.) But I'm sure that the best weapon/gadget they've ever invented for our business was sitting right in Joe's hand and he was passing it around.

"Dr. Fibs has been kind enough to share these prototypes of a new portable voice-stress analyzer he's developing." Joe explained. "It's equipped with a microchip that will monitor a person's voice, and if they are lying, it was vibrate very softly, alerting the wearer to the lie."

I watched Cammie turn the plastic ring in her hand as Joe walked up to Tina Walter's desk and said, "And the rings can be fooled, with training." I half-smiled as I remembered the time I convinced Jonas that I had stayed at campus for the whole winter break when I was actually in Switzerland and nearly got shot. He believed me. I was sure I could do the same with the ring.

"For example, ask me a question, Ms. Waters- any question." Joe said.

Tina stopped to think for a second before asking, "Do you have a girlfriend?"

Some people giggled (I'm ashamed to say it but yes, Grant was one of them…) Joe just bit back a smile and said, "No."

"Nothing. It didn't do anything. So it's true?" Tina stared at the ring.

"Ask me again." Joe said.

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Yes." Then Tina waved her hand and was frowning at it.

"It's not broken, Ms. Walters." Joe said and I swear I could hear some smugness in his voice. "It's just not as good as detecting lies as I am at telling them." Something tells me that Joe also knew how it felt to be wired to Truth Master 3000 in the middle of freezing winter.

I felt familiar eyes on me. I turned my head and caught Cammie looking at me. I wondered if she had seen through any of my lies.

"Partner with the person across from you. Watch their eyes, pay attention to their voice. And see if you can guess who's lying." Joe instructed.

"Oh," I said, I raised my eyes at the irony of the whole situation. She wanted to know so badly about me and the opportunity was practically walking up to her in plain sight. "This should be fun." For her, that is.

"What's your name?" I sighed mentally, was this going to be a déjà vu of last night? Hopefully I didn't have to prompt her this time.

"Zach." I stated plainly.

"What's you're _full _name?"

"That's a pretty boring question, Gallagher Girl." Degrading was also a powerful weapon to increase motivation.

"Zach!" Cammie said sharply.

"Yes, that's correct." I said sarcastically and I held up her right hand. (A rather large part of my mind turned into slush at the contact.) "See- not lying."

"Where were you during the Code Black?"

I broke out into a grin. Finally, she was actually getting somewhere close to her mission objective. "That's better."

"Answer the-"

I cut her off. "I was with you, remember?" I made sure that I kept my voice and pulse in check (which is a lot easier said than done since Cammie was sitting right next to me) so the ring wouldn't detect my lie. She didn't respond and I knew she believed me because the ring didn't move. Her suspicions of me were gone and my Blackthorne Burden was safe. In Dr. Steve's words: _Excellent_.

Without suspicions, it kind of let me be available to actually act like a normal guy for once and maybe ask her to eat dinner with me or-

Okay, that's enough. I shouldn't get ahead of myself too much. But that didn't stop the goofy grin that I could feel growing on my face. "My turn. Did you have fun last night?"

"Zach, I really don't think that's what Mr. Solomon is going for this particular exercise."

Avoiding the questing, eh? "I'll take that as a yes. We should really do it again sometime." Cammie glanced at the ring. I have to admit- I was kind of hurt because that line was actually sincere. Just then, a part of me registered that I sort-of asked her out. And that part of me had also registered that I got turned down.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"The Blackthorne Institute for Boys." That wasn't a lie. But I couldn't exactly add 'Detention Facility for Juvenile Delinquents.'

"What do your parents do?" Cammie asked again. The smile on my face fell. _Mom. _For the first time in a long while, I remembered that I was literally looking at a reflection of Mom. Just that she was younger.

"What do you think they do?" I couldn't conjure up a brilliant lie yet so my reflex reactions took over. I unconsciously straightened my notebook as I mentally panicked about what to say if Cammie asked more about them. Or _her_ since I don't have a Dad.

"They were CIA?" she whispered. Well, that saved me a lot of thinking.

"Used to be." Fortunately, I had already controlled my pulse and voice.

* * *

I know I'm heartless. Cammie probably thought I had lost both of my parents to CIA missions. She was probably relating her situation to mine's. She was probably feeling sad _for me_. She might even want to comfort me.

But I barely _have_ parents. Or family, for that matter. I'm not that close to Mom. I don't have a Dad. The closest person I have is Joe. My friendship with Grant and Jonas was temporary since I was sure that I had to break contact with them as soon as I was out of Blackthorne.

I know I was trained to tell lies. No matter how ridiculous, no matter how impossible. But I don't know if it's because I like Cammie or something but for some reason, I didn't want to take advantage of her feelings. I couldn't have that on my conscience. (And this is coming from someone who nearly stabbed a security guard. I was stopped because Joe purposely set off the fire alarm.)

And that's why I found myself walking down to one of the entrances to Cammie's observation post. I guessed she use the 'fireplace exit' since it was the closest to her dorm.

I was right. "So the tour is closed, huh?"

Cammie jumped at the sound of my voice and accidentally bumped her head against the marble mantelpiece. "Ow! What are _you_ doing here?" _Comforting my conscience. _

"Come on." I didn't feel like answering the question out loud yet and I reached out to rub the bump on her scalp. I could feel a swollen bruise growing there already. "You live."

"You're being nice." Cammie stated, sounding shocked. I wanted to grimace at that. It wasn't exactly…suitable for someone like me.

"Don't tell anyone." It was supposed to be sarcastic but I don't think it sounded like it. I changed the subject. "So…did your bugs hear anything interesting?"

When she didn't say anything, I couldn't resist but jump at the opportunity to tease her, "What? No snappy comebacks? Nonexistent cat named Suzie got your tongue?"

"How do you know about Suzie?"

I smiled as I remembered one clandestine visit to Roseville. "Spy." And I pointed to myself.

Then it felt like someone had pressed the mute button on the universe. Silver moonlight shone into the room, there was absolute silence around us and none of us said anything. The silence was almost fragile. I was too afraid to speak- I felt like if I spoke too loudly, the whole mansion would split into two.

I noticed a stray strand of hazel colored hair falling across Cammie's face. Almost on impulse, I slowly lifted my hand towards her face and brushed it away. Then I jerked away. _This was a mission._

But at that moment, Joe's words came back to me. _This wasn't just a mission anymore. _

"Why don't you ask me about it. About them?" My reflexes asked her automatically. I know she had lost a parent as well but when you grew up with Grant and Jonas bombarding you with questions ever since you mentioned your mother for the first time, you don't really get used to the fact that someone might be like you. Even if they were only like you in the teeniest of ways.

"I'll tell you mine's if you tell me yours." I don't know why I said that when there was a big part of me that was screaming at me to stop and backtrack. But maybe it was because of my mission. Or maybe it was because I liked Cammie. Or maybe I was staring at the physical reflection of my mother and the mental reflection of…myself.

"It was a mission." Cammie said, her voice slightly choked. "Four years ago my dad went on a mission. He didn't come home. Nobody knows what…_happened_." I could tell that she hadn't said this before- the emotions in her voice was still raw like she had just received the news four years ago.

"Somebody knows." '_Never assume. Always anticipate.'_ It goes the same for answers.

"What? What are you saying?" Cammie whispered.

"I'm saying somebody knows." I said sharply. There were always two sides to a story. The good side- CIA, MI6, KGB… And the bad side- the Circle of Cavan. Someone always knew- it was only a matter if it was on the good or the bad side. Cammie was too protected, too naïve and too…fragile to go look on the bad side. But I couldn't say it like that. "I'm saying you shouldn't act like there aren't any answers just because you haven't taken the time to look for them."

"What am I supposed to do, Zach? I'm just-" _NO. No. She was giving up to grief, to misery. That's one of the worst thing any human being could do because if allowed, grief and misery could eat you up. _And I promised Joe that I'd get her out of there alive.

"Just a girl?" I shrugged and sighed. "I thought you were a Gallagher Girl." Then I walked away.

* * *

"Catherine's coming." Dr. Steve told me after classes the next day.

Professional training or not, all I could say was, "What?"

"I said your mother's coming to check on you." Dr. Steve's eyes were steel now. He was expressionless and looked exactly like the crazy evil genius I knew he was. "She wants to know how you're getting on with your mission."

"How?" I asked. Was she going to sneak into my dorm to check on me?

"There's a town outing in two weeks. I don't know and don't care how you do it but get Cameron Morgan to go with you. If you did your mission properly, you should be able to do it. That's what she wants to see." Dr. Steve said. "You know what to do."

"Fine."

* * *

The Operative understood that it was crucial that he got to ask the Subject out for the town outing. Fortunately, the Operative had studied Advanced Sociology.

'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.' This saying is 90% true. I had to stay away from Cammie for some time, make her feel lonely and when I asked her out, it was most likely she would say yes.

So I did what I was necessary and I felt terrible. I didn't even say hi when we passed in the corridors, I didn't smile at her, I didn't look at her in classes and I was completely miserable.

Because every time I saw her and acted like she didn't exist, I could see something in her eyes. Maybe it was confusion, maybe it was disappointment or maybe it was…sadness? Or maybe it was wishful thinking but I think Cammie might be feeling the same as well.

But I couldn't do anything about it. So I didn't.

* * *

The one and a half week passed excruciatingly slow and finally, I had salvation and wrote the note.

It was an ironic place to do the brush pass. Since the bottom of the Grand Stairs reminded me of the ball, which led to the Code Black, which led to…

_So I hear we get to go to town this weekend. Want to catch a movie or something? _

_-Z_

_P.S. That is, if Jimmy doesn't mind. _

But we didn't necessary that had to go watch a movie, we could go an- what? Jimmy was a pathetic guy.

* * *

I've read and watched enough romances that first dates were supposed to unnerving. It was supposed to be a bit awkward and someone should be hyperventilating. (Fine, I was a bit nervous on the inside.) And I was supposed to appreciate Cammie's clothing choice or something. (Liz did her hair, I could see from the way her hair was combed. Macey did her make-up, I could see from the choice of eye shadow. And Bex chose the jacket because it was a bit too…low cut?)

But I never expected that on my first date, I was memorizing every face that was within a five-mile radius, observing for any suspicious tailing movement or check the skies were clear from any suspicious airborne mechanisms (I knew for a fact that the Circle owned at least 3 stealth planes because I was taught how to fly one).

I kind of got distracted with my own security protocol for Mom until Cammie said, "Do you want to do something?"

"We could go to the movie." I suggested. "Or get something to eat." It was a normal date, after all. Mom was only…checking up. Well, that and the fact that Bex was on the opposite side of the street tailing us, Liz was a little way behind us and checking something out in a shop's display store and Macey was ten feet away and sitting on a bench with some eight graders.

"Okay."

"Or we could just…walk."

"Okay." Cammie said again and I got a bit annoyed about her lack of response.

So I said something that would definitely get her to say something, "Or we could have that clown over there paint our faces and then go rob the bank." Technically, I had tried something like that before in my eight-grade spring break.

"No way. Last October they installed a Stockholm Series 360- it'd take us at least forty-five minutes to crack it."

"Good to know." I laughed. I looked around and I spotted…my mother.

Well, I didn't really spot my mother. I spotted my mother wearing a red jacket, a body suit, a fake nose and mustache. I could only recognize her from her eyes and the ring she wore on her hand.

The operative in me reminded me that I was on a mission and the guy in me told me that I was on a date so I took Cammie's hand and pulled her around a corner onto a quieter street. Hopefully that was enough to prove to Mom that my mission was running smoothly.

"So, plant any good bugs lately?" I asked. But I didn't really pay attention to Cammie's response because I just spotted a walking cloud of cotton candy about to appear around the corner in the reflection of a store's display window. And walking cotton candy meant…Jimmy. This was something I couldn't miss.

"Just so you know, Gallagher Girl." I whispered. "I'm going to kiss you now." I used my hand to support the back of her neck, I laced my fingers through her dishwater blonde hair and I tilted my head as I leaned forwards. At that moment, I knew that this wasn't a reflex reaction. Nor was it arrogance or to prove to Jimmy that I was on a date with Cammie. This was genuine. Cammie closed her eyes and I also knew that she felt it too. (Then for the first time that day, I wasn't thinking about my mother dropping in disguised as a man.)

Then "Oh my gosh! Cammie, is that you?" The worst word I could think of slipped out of me in Farsi. I hadn't kissed Cammie. _I hadn't kissed Cammie. _

"Hi, Cammie." DeeDee said brightly and hugged Cammie. She smiled at me, "I'm so glad you two are here!" I nodded back at DeeDee (it took a lot of self-control to not yell at her). My glance fell on Cammie. She was looking at Jimmy, whose face clearly screamed 'heart break'. Then she quickly stepped away from me and something jolted through me. Jealousy? Hurt? Hatred? Whatever it was, it was painful.

But I didn't have time to think about what pain stabbed me because I saw Cammie…seeing Mom. I could see it in Cammie's eyes as clearly as I could see the Gallagher stance in my mother's eyes.

* * *

As Jimmy, DeeDee, Cammie and I started to walk down the street, Cammie whispered to me, "Hey, you're gonna think I'm crazy."

I smirked, "A little late for that, Gallagher Girl."

"You haven't seen anyone following us, have you?" she asked.

"You mean besides your roommates?" I laughed. I glanced into the reflection of a store window- Bex was eyeing us from a sidewalk café, Liz was behind a magazine stand and Macey was lining up to buy lemonade but glancing at us all the same. But for a split second, my gaze fell a little way behind them and I saw faces.

Faces that I only saw during intensive training during breaks. _Mom. Dr. Steve. Faces. Joe. _

The whole cell I belonged to was here.

Everyone I knew involved in the Circle of Cavan was here.

In Roseville. Tailing Gallagher Girls.

**The Operative is highly aware of the threat surrounding them and is running security protocols in his head.**

Cammie rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Besides them."

"No. I haven't seen anyone on our tail. Why?" I lied. It took all self-control to stop my eyes from flickering to Mom.

"The guy. The blue jacket." Cammie started to say but paused as DeeDee turned her head to glance at us. "Don't you think he's _toasty_ in that heavy coat?" Spy-slang for an operative that's about to get caught. Cammie didn't know that I knew exactly who was the 'man' so I swiveled my head and I saw my mother in a blue jacket.

"What about him?" I wondered if Cammie saw anything about him…I mean her.

"The jacket's reversible. Ten minutes ago he-" _her_, I corrected her in my head. "-Was wearing it the other way. Do you think a lot of regular guys in Roseville take the time to reverse their jackets?" I mentally breathed a sigh of relief- Cammie didn't know anything.

We stopped to look in a store window's reflection.

"Look at that guy, Gallagher Girl." I said as Mom bought a corn dog. Yeah, my mom did kind of like corn dogs. "He's a mustard disaster looking for a place to happen. I bet you anything he's got a big stain on the other side." I laughed out loud because one, DeeDee and Jimmy were looking at us and two, Mom had said almost the same words when she bought my first corn dog.

"Now what are you two chatting about?" DeeDee asked playfully.

"Oh, Cammie was trying to convince me that I should recognize that guy in the blue jacket." I casually said and looked straight at Cammie. "But I've never seen him before in my life." The last line would have been a good lie. Cammie would have believed me. She wouldn't have suspected a thing as I said it.

But I completely forgot my training because for the first time, two pairs of identical eyes were on me. Just that one was hot chocolate and one was iced coffee. And because Cammie was still wearing the truth ring on her hand and it was vibrating.

And Cammie noticed.

* * *

"I've got to go to the bathroom." She suddenly said.

"I'll walk with you." I replied automatically. With Mom and with what could be half of the Circle walking free around Roseville, no way I was going to let Cammie out of my sight.

"No." Cammie shook her head and smiled at DeeDee. "It's a girl thing." Then I remembered Cammie had her friends on us.

As Cammie started to walk in front with Cammie, she also was leaving me alone with Jimmy.

"So," he started. "You go to school with Cammie." _Yes, Captain Obvious. Thank you for that brilliant observation. _

"Yeah, for this semester." I replied shortly. I was more distracted with how I was going to deal with Mom.

"You've started dating her ever since? I mean, you just clicked and…?" _You know, Jimmy boy? I'm amazed that you can talk about these things because with almost the entire terrorist cell tailing us and/or Gallagher Girls, dating kind of fades into utter insignificance. _

"Kind of. We met quite early in the semester and with close proximity and all that." I tried to be as vague as he was, as I looked frantically around for Grant and Jonas or Joe.

"Erm…yeah." Jimmy coughed and cleared his throat.

"Do you need a cough drop?" I said. "I hear you run a pharmacy." _Okay, I deserved a pat on the back for that. _

"How did you know that?" Jimmy asked immediately. "Did Cammie say anything about me?"

Maybe it was the fact that the Circle had members infiltrating Roseville, or maybe it was because I liked Cammie, or maybe it was because I saw Jonas and Grant across the street and was quickly losing my temper so I stopped walking abruptly and said coldly, "Occasionally."

And I swear I saw Jimmy smirk smugly.

Possible case scenarios:

1) Sock Jimmy in his smug face.

2) Throw another taunt. Right in the heartache.

3) Grab Jonas and Grant and leave.

As tempting as Option 1 and 2 sounded, I knew Option 3 was the best so I-

**The Operative is suddenly aware that the Subject is nowhere in his line of sight**. **He also did not see ****Rebecca Baxter, Elizabeth Sutton and/or Macey McHenry around. Or any other Gallagher Girls. They were all...gone. **

"Where's Cammie?" I prayed my voice didn't start screaming or start slipping out Japanese cuss words.

"She left with a friend." DeeDee said, confused. "They had to go back to school. Shouldn't you be going back as well?" _Yes, I should've gone back. Or wherever Cammie went because there were seven full hours until we had to return to school. _

"Erm, yeah." I said. "I should be going as well. Bye, DeeDee…Jimmy."

"_Jimmy?" _I could hear Jimmy exclaim but I had no time to deal with him because I was already jogging towards Jonas and Grant.

"Mossad. Libris." I gasped, going into full Blackthorne Boy mode. "I need your help. Now."

"What's the matter, Zach? Or am I supposed to use code names as well?" Jonas asked.

"It's about the tails, right?" Grant said, ignoring Jonas. "I saw a couple on Bex and Liz."

I nodded. "Jonas, I need you to tap into a tracking signal."

Jonas' jaw dropped. "T-t-that's impossible! There might be hundreds of tracking signals around Roseville!"

"It's not official. It's something covert." I said quickly. I looked at Grant. "Find everyone and get them back to school." I turned to Jonas. "Come on. We've got to get to the school computers."

Jonas and Grant still looked hesitant. "Why?"

I wanted to yell in frustration. "Where are the girls? Look around. They're gone!"

Grant was the first one to snap back into reality. "You put a tracking signal on them?"

"No." I explained as we started to walk back to school with Grant darting around, telling other Blackthorne Boys to join us. "They put a signal on us. We need to tweak the signal around to make sure they're following him. And I need to tap into a signal to know where they're heading because he's leading them to wherever they're going."

"And whose tracker is that?" Jonas asked and I could literally see the gears spinning and turning in his genius brain.

"Dr. Steve."

* * *

**A/N: Okay, this is the second last chapter of 'Zach In Shining Armor'! And I would like to thank all of you because this story has over 1000 views and more than 20 reviews! I feel so loved/blessed because this is the most successful story I've ever wrote so thank you! **

**Fun fact: 'Mossad', Grant's code name, is actually the name of Israel's foreign intelligence service. And 'Libris', Jonas' code name, is Latin for 'books'. **

**So, I hoped you like this chapter (it's eleven pages long!) and can I ask for a teensy, tiny favor? If it's not too much trouble, I'd love it if you could recommend this fanfic to your friends or something. Thank you! :) **

**Cheers,**

**AwesomePP**


	5. Chapter 5

"He's that one." I pointed at a lone red dot on the computer screen. "That's Dr. Steve."

"How do you know?" Jonas asked while tapping into the signal.

"He wasn't in town today." I said. _He wasn't with the Circle. And why wouldn't he be with them? He was doing something else. Something big. _Of course, Jonas didn't know that.

"What do we do?" Grant asked with the rest of the Blackthorne Boys behind him. I peered at the computer screen. Dr. Steve was at this place called 'Swindon Factories' that was on the opposite side of town. Another cluster of red dots was just outside the school and moving towards Swindon Factories. They were Gallagher Girls…and they were probably playing right into Dr. Steve's hands.

The Gallagher Academy only had one van and five golf carts for commute around the school grounds. The girls had taken the van and it was impossible to run or drive golf carts all the way to Swindon Factories. Even if we did, Dr. Steve would already have more than enough time to do whatever his mission was. Then I remembered D.C.

We had gotten there on helicopter. And I bet you anything that the Gallagher Academy has one too. Despite our different syllabuses, Blackthorne and Gallagher were twins at heart.

There was only one place to find the helicopter- the Headmistress's office.

* * *

"The school is still covered in steel." Jonas snapped. "Even I can't turn off the Code Black. I don't see why breaking into the office will help us find anything."

"Yes, we can." I went back to the night of the ball and started to go through Headmistress Morgan's drawers, thankfully, they weren't locked. In the second drawer, I found the familiar tube of mascara. I uncapped the shorter end, pressed the tiny button and within seconds, the whole school was appearing before our eyes again.

"How did you know that?" Grant asked.

"I saw it before." I replied shortly. I turned to Chester, "Find the blueprints or a map of the whole school. See if there's a helicopter pad or something."

Two minutes later of scanning papers, Chester reported, "Right outside the school doors. It's underground."

"How do we get it out?" Grant started to search through the drawers again. I sighed in frustration. This was kind of the time when you really want something labeled with 'Helicopter Pad Opener.'

Suddenly, Jonas yelled. "Wait! Open that drawer again!"

Grant did what he was told and said, "What?"

"Car keys." Jonas fished out a small remote with the Maserati logo on it.

"So? She's a headmistress, her paycheck could definitely afford a snazzy car like that." Grant snorted.

"Yeah, but where's the snazzy car?" Jonas shot back.

We all look simultaneously at one another and sprinted to the front doors. Jonas pressed the 'unlock' button on the car keys and sure enough, a hollow opening appearing in the field in front of the doors. A helicopter rose up from the ground.

"Who knows how to fly a chopper?" Chester asked the eldest of us, who were the juniors but even with advanced training at Blackthorne, we didn't get close to any of this yet.

"I know." I said softly and started to slide open the doors of the helicopter.

Everybody was shooting me strange glances and Jonas asked, "Why are we even doing this? How do you, out of all people, know how to fly a copter?"

I huffed but didn't pause as I started to check the fuel and controls. "Look, we've got tails in Roseville, the girls suddenly disappear and when we get back, there's a Code Black. What other explanation do you want?" I checked the tracker signals again (we transferred the data onto Jonas' watch). The girls were already halfway to Swindon Factories.

"Are you coming or not?" I yelled over the spinning blades. Grant looked at me for a couple of seconds but he climbed on the helicopter. Then Jonas. Then Chester. Then the eight graders and the juniors.

"You still haven't told us why you know how to fly this thing." Jonas grumbled.

"My mom taught me." I said as we took off over Roseville.

"Who's your mom?" Jonas said. A question that he and Grant had asked repeatedly over the years.

I swallowed. Jonas knew nothing about who Mom was and the Circle. He only knew that she was classified. So I only could say, "She used to be CIA."

* * *

"That's the van!" Chester looked out of the windows and spotted the scarlet Gallagher Academy van navigating its way across Roseville.

"We need to get there before they do." I said and increased our speed.

Soon, I was lowering our altitude and landing right next to Swindon Factories.

"It's abandoned." Chester said.

"No, it's not." One of the juniors corrected him and we could see motion sensors, trip wires, and infrared beams.

"Why would Dr. Steve be here?" Jonas whispered as we climbed out of the helicopter.

"That's what I'm going to find out." I walked towards the seemingly abandoned ruins. Grant, Jonas and the others started to follow but I stopped them. "No, I'm going in alone. The girls will be here in-" I checked Jonas' watch. "-Three and a half minute. I suggest you stay where you are."

And I slipped under the electric fence.

* * *

The Circle's training had brought me to scenarios like these countless times. I studied the guard rotations. I ran possible escape routes and I found the location of the offender.

I could hear Dr. Steve talking inside a building. But I knew I couldn't barge in without back up so I waited on the rooftop of the building opposite it. (Fortunately, there were wires, rappelling cords and harnesses all around the place so I was sure there was something more to Swindon Factories.)

Precisely two minutes later, Cammie appeared around the corner, looking at a small green monitor. But I wasn't looking at the monitor or whether she had back up because at the same time, an armed guard was walking towards her so I leapt soundlessly onto the ground, clamped my hand over her mouth before she could say anything and pulled on the rappelling cords.

"Cam." I whispered in her ear as we landed on the rooftop. But Cammie was a trained operative and she stepped back, grabbed my arm and tried to flip over her head. Luckily, I was also trained for this so I countered my weight so I didn't even budge.

"It's me. It's Zach." That was all I could say because a searchlight swept over the complex and we both pressed ourselves down on the roof.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't throw you off this building right now." Cammie hissed. And it surprised me that I wasn't thinking about Mom. I knew Mom had said that somewhere in Dubai before. Exactly the same words but at that moment, my brain registered that it was only the two of us. Cammie and I, nothing else.

"Give me one good reason why-" Cammie started again but I rolled towards her and put my arm around her shoulders.

"I'll give you two." I said as two of the guards walked around the corner where Cammie had been only seven seconds ago.

When the footsteps faded, Cammie asked coldly, "What's going on, Zach? Who was that man in town?" Suddenly, she cinched my arm behind my back and rolled me onto my stomach. Needless to say, it hurt. And I was stuck. "How did you find this place? Who is down there and what are they going to do with the list?"

"Well, first of all, _ouch._" I hissed. Cammie's strength was not to be underestimated. "Second, I came back to school after you ditched me in town with Jimmy-"

"Josh!" Cammie said sharply. I rolled my eyes. How could she be correcting names that barely mattered to the crisis right now?

"I came back to the school after you ditched me- thanks for that, by the way." I said. _And for sending me into total panic._ "Then it's all Code Black again and you and your whole class were gone. We figured you'd tracked us, so we tweaked the signal so we could follow your tracking mechanism. And here we are." Okay, I left a lot of parts out and altered my words a bit but hey, it wasn't exactly a lie.

"Who's we?" And Cammie held my arm tighter and pain shot up to my shoulder blade.

"Seriously, Gallagher Girl, that hurts like a- _Ow!_" And Cammie twisted harder. "Grant, Jonas, some of the juniors. They're out here, too. They're out there with your girls."

Once I said it, Cammie started to voice a message into her comms and I took advantage of the moment and flipped her over.

"Cammie," I snapped. "Look at me." She writhed and kicked but I just held tighter and my voice was softer, "Gallagher Girl."

"You lied." Cammie's voice was barely a whisper. She sounded hurt, disappointed and I remembered that she wasn't bulletproof. "I know you lied in town, Zach. I know you've seen that man who was on our tail."

My eyes widened. "That's what this is about?" I laughed. "You ditched me in town and organized a war party because I lied about knowing that guy?" _I was here because I thought Dr. Steve was going to kidnap you or something! I was here because I thought the Circle was about to get you and your girls! _

"No, I organized a war party because someone knocked Mr. Mosckowitz out and stole the Gallagher Academy alumni list!" Cammie growled and I froze. This was bad. Way bad. Even more bad than your whole terrorist cell in the town of Roseville and tracking someone that you like. I stopped applying force onto Cammie's arm until I was just holding her.

I looked into Cammie's eyes. They were hot chocolate. They were protected and fragile. They were a part of one of the most significant thing in my life because for some unknown reason, the Circle wanted her and it was my mission and promise to keep her safe. To keep her alive.

I grabbed her right hand. "Here. Look at it. Or better yet, look at me. Watch my eyes, Cammie. I'm not lying." Cammie studied me and I knew she believed. "I'd seen that guy with Dr. Steve before and didn't want to blow his over. I had no idea he was a threat. I thought he was on a training op or…I don't know…checking up on us or something. I didn't' think it was a big deal." I was on a training op. I wasn't sure if Mom was really checking up on me or not. So this wasn't a lie. At all. Except for the 'he' part, that is.

I rolled off Cammie and said, "I didn't think it was worth explaining it in front of…"

"Josh and DeeDee." Cammie shook her head like she was trying to figure out a really complicated Algebra problem.

"We're not the bad guys, Gallagher Girl." I said softly. At least, I tried not to be.

"Then who is?" she asked.

I let go of Cammie's wrists and pointed at the building I hear Dr. Steve talking in. "Him." And because I had already calculated the rotation of the guards, a second later, four of them walked out and we both could hear a faint "Excellent," and the face of Dr. Steve.

* * *

"Dr. Steve." Cammie said into her comms. A while later, she replied, "I know, Chica. Zach's with me."

Cammie rolled her eyes. "No. Tina needs to get off Grant. And bring him to the roof of the building on the northwest corner." She turned and studied me carefully. I tried not to avoid her gaze. "They've got some explaining to do."

Within a few minutes, I could see the familiar shape of Blackthorne Boys and Gallagher Girls making their way to the rooftop.

"What's going on, Cam?" Bex asked. She glanced at me. "Want me to throw him off the roof?"

"Only if he doesn't tell us what the Blackthorne Institute is and why one of their teachers is out to destroy the Gallagher Girls." Cammie replied.

"What do you mean?" Grant said, feigning innocence. "You know what our school is." But after knowing and training with Grant Chapman for almost four years, I could see the Blackthorne Burden literally shining in his eyes. For a moment, the Blackthorne Boys were reminded how lonely they were. It was completely against human nature.

"You've got your cover. We've got ours." I said after a moment of silence.

"What's that supposed to-" _Don't ask, Cammie. Just don't ask. _

"You're the Gallagher Girls." I snapped. Suddenly, it felt like the heavens was crying for the Blackthorne Boys because it started to rain and water droplets slid down my face. I wished I could've used the rain to hide my tears but none came because I had already accepted the truth- "We're the stepchild no one ever talks about."

"Then what-" Cammie started to ask but she was cut off as two guards exited the building opposite us. When they left, Cammie said, "He can't get away. That list can't get away."

"It won't." I promised. At that moment, it looked like a group of operatives-in-training against someone that wanted to sabotage the practice of espionage in the world. But I knew better- it was me against the Circle, my first real battle against the Circle as a part of the resistance.

I walked towards the edge of the roof and attached a rappelling harness to a cable that skirted down between the buildings. "We've got to go, Cam." I extended my hand. It was like asking her to dance with me.

"Do you trust me?" I asked. I looked at Cammie and I remembered what I had seen, what I had felt, what I had learnt and most of all, what I had discovered. As Cammie placed her warm hand in mine's, I swear I could see a small smile flicker across her face.

* * *

Once we touched down on the grass, Cammie marched up to the metal door of the building that Dr. Steve was in.

"What are you _doing_?" I hissed, struggling to keep my voice down.

Cammie banged hard on the metal door. "Hey, can one of you guys come give me a hand with this?" My eyes widened as the door opened. I waited for a gunshot, a scream or the sound of the small body crumpling to the floor. But Cammie just grabbed one of the guards when the door opened and knocked him out with a punch. Then she stuck a Napotine patch on his forehead.

"Nice one." I smiled. I would never have thought of storming up to the rat's nest and taking out one of the guards. "Did you learn that in P&E?"

"No. _Buffy the Vampire Slayer._" Cammie said as she looked down at the man. I knew Cammie recognized him from the Roseville town trip but I knew him from my school breaks. _Why was he here? _I had lost count of asking this question in my head in the last six hours.

Cammie dragged the man to the tall weeds and we started to go through his pockets, "Comms."

I put the earpiece inside my ear and peeked through the dusty window of the building. Dr. Steve was pacing around the room with four guards around him. I recognized the four guards from my term breaks as well.

A crackling in my ear sounded, "Fawkes to Cobra, how many agents are standing by? Over."

"Unconfirmed." A second voice replied. "Maybe around twenty to fifteen. Over."

I leaned close to Cammie, "They've got at least fifteen guys."

"What do you hear?" Cammie whispered. I held up a finger to shush her.

"Cobra to Fawkes. Can we touch down? Over."

"LDA. Touch down on runway two seven. CON surface. Over."

"Roger that. Over and out."

_LDA- Landing distance available. _

_Runway two seven- Runway 27, pointing 270 degrees, which means the west. _

_CON- The runway's surface is concrete._

A plane was landing on the west side of us, with at least fifteen people standing by. This was bad. With a plane, they could take off to Australia and we wouldn't even know it.

"What is it, Zach?" Cammie hissed. "What's going-"

"Cammie, listen to me. I don't know where he's going, or what Dr. Steve's planning to do with that list but…" I started to say but trailed off because the plane was landing earlier than imagined and red lights were starting to blink in the darkness behind Cammie's shoulder. "…I think I know how he's getting there." I tugged on Cammie's elbow until she faced west.

"Guys," Cammie's voice sounded hollow. "We've got a change of plans."

* * *

"They're here!" a guy yelled but it was too late as Bex and Grant took him down. The soft buzzes of cords sounded in the air and Gallagher Girls and Blackthorne Boys were dropping down onto the ground around us.

"South back up, we need you!" an unfamiliar voice called in my ear.

"How many?" another guy asked as I pressed the comms unit closer to my ear.

"At least three!" the first voice ordered.

"Three guys are coming around the south side of the building- go!" I told Bex and Grant. Without a second glance, they disappeared into the dark.

Suddenly, a guard loomed out of the dark at me. I didn't hesitate as I slammed my elbow in his stomach. I heard the breath whoosh out of him and I gave him a roundhouse kick into his solar plexus. Then he doubled over.

I spun around, expecting another attacker but instead, I saw Liz flying through the air, right into my mother. And flattening her. Then at the corner of my eye, I saw a beefy guard launch himself at Liz and I stepped between them. Before I could react, something hard slammed into my cheek. I stumbled backwards and saw Cammie staring at me. Her eyes were full of fear. In another situation, I would've felt honored and a warm fuzzy feeling would grow in my stomach but right now, there was something more important.

"Go!" I yelled and pointed at Dr. Steve.

I watched as Cammie ran up to Dr. Steve. Her voice wasn't even shaking as she said, "I think you've got something that belongs to us. You're not leaving with that disc."

"Oh," Dr. Steve said as a stairway to the plane began to descend towards the ground. "I believe you're just a little…too…" And Dr. Steve could say no more because he was currently held fast with one of Rebecca Baxter's choke holds. He crumpled to the ground and Bex kept her hold on him.

The disc fell from Dr. Steve's pocket and Cammie scooped it up. "You're not taking that anywhere. You're not getting on that plane."

And a new voice sounded, "That's right, Ms. Morgan, he's not."

* * *

**10 49 hours**

**Last day of Gallagher/Blackthorne exchange program**

"You're already packed." Cammie appeared when I was about the leave the foyer with Grant and Jonas.

I smiled, "We've all got baggage."

She pointed to the bruise on my face, "That looks bad." And a genuine, warm feeling flooded through me.

I shook my head. "It isn't. He-"

"Hits like a girl?" Cammie smirked.

I looked at Cammie's hot chocolate brown eyes, "Not the girls I know."

Cammie nodded, her right cheek lifted in a half-smile and she turned to walk away. _It's now or never. _

"Oh, Cammie." I called and she turned around. I slid my arms around her upper back, lowered her backwards and gave her a short, chaste kiss. It wasn't much but it was enough to make me grin widely at her. "I always finish what I start."

Almost unwillingly, I stepped towards the front doors of the Gallagher Academy.

"So this is good-bye?" Cammie asked.

"Come on, Gallagher Girl." I turned to her and winked. "What would be the odds of that?" Then I walked outside, got into the van and didn't look back.

* * *

When the van drove further and further away from the Gallagher Academy, I couldn't help thinking that I had gained a lot more than the mission objective and perhaps…I didn't want to let it go.

I told myself that I should put it behind me. I knew the chances of seeing Cammie again would be close to zero and if we did, I would be on the other side. And I knew this was normal- exactly how I expected life to be like for me as a Blackthorne Boy.

We do missions, achieve the mission objective, maybe kill a couple people along the way and people will pull us out and make us seem like we've dropped off the face of the planet. We keep moving on and we don't look back because we know that once we do, we might not be able to turn around.

But I knew I wasn't a normal Blackthorne Boy- I was a part of the resistance. So when I returned to Blackthorne 10 hours later, Dr. Steve told me that Mom wanted me in her office.

"You were there, weren't you?" I said, more statement than question. "It wasn't just a normal check up on me."

"We were just…evaluating." Mom replied.

"For what?"

But Mom just smiled and leaned closer to me, "You were great, sweetie. Expect more this summer."

_To be continued..._

**A/N: And that is the end of Zach's POV for Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy. I really, really appreciate everyone who reviewed and favorited the story. I do read every review and I try to reply as well! They're one of my motivators, you know. And of course, I thank every single person who has read this story, no matter if it was only the first sentence or until the last chapter of 'Zach In Shining Armor'. I'm glad to say that this story has hit 1400+ views! **_  
_

**And yes, I will continue to write a Zach's POV for Don't Judge a Girl By Her Cover. It's going to be called 'Ten of Diamonds' and it'll be up in a couple of weeks. (I need to re-read the book, do some background research and come up with a few ideas on how does Zach fight the Circle from the inside.) I hope you guys can still stick around to read it! :)**

**Once again, thank you to all of you who have made this writing experience just superb for me! And for watching Zach, a machine with a brain, trying to find a heart. (And I think he did that quite spectacularly...) **

**Cheers,**

**AwesomePP**


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